"How could you, coming into our ranks with a dead man's commission and forged papers? How long did you think it could last? Were you mad?" He looked at her wistfully, smiled, and shook his head. "Not mad, unless you are. Your risks are greater than were mine." She straightened up, stepped toward him, very pale. "Will you come?" she asked. "I am sorry." "I am sorry--for us both," he said gently. "Yes, I will come. Send those troopers away." "I cannot." "Yes, you can. I give my word of honor." She hesitated; a bright flush stained his face. "I take your word," she murmured. A moment later the troopers mounted and cantered off down the hill, veering wide to skirt the head of a column of infantry marching in; and when the Special Messenger started to return she found masses of men threatening to separate her from her prisoner--sunburnt, sweating, dirty-faced men, clutching their rifle-butts with red hands. Their officers rode ahead, thrashing through the moist grass; a forest of bayonets swayed in the sun; flag after flag passed, slanting above the masses of blue. She and her prisoner looked on; the flag of the 63d New York swept by; the flags of the 69th and 88th followed. A moment later the columns halted. "Your Excelsiors," said Moray calmly. "They're under fire already. Shall we move on?" A soldier in the ranks, standing with ordered arms, fell straight backward, heavily; a corporal near them doubled up with a grunt. The Special Messenger heard bullets smacking on rocks; heard their dull impact as they struck living bodies; saw them knock men flat. Meanwhile the flags drooped above the halted ranks, their folds stirred lazily, fell, and scarcely moved; the platoon fire rolled on unbroken somewhere out in the smoke yonder. "God send me a bullet," said Moray.... "Why do you stay here?" "To--give you--that chance." "You run it, too." "I hope so. I am very--tired." "I am sorry," he said, reddening. She said fiercely: "I wish it were over.... Life is cruel.... I suppose we must move on. Will you come, please?" "Yes--my dark messenger," he said under his breath, and smiled. A priest passed them in the smoke; her prisoner raised his hand to the visor of his cap. "Father Corby, their chaplain," she murmured. "Attention! Attention!" a far voice cried, and the warning ran from rank to rank, taken up in turn by officer after officer. Father Corby was climbing to the summit of a mound close by; an order rang out, bugles repeated it, and the blue ranks faced their chaplain. Then the priest from his rocky pulpit raised his ringing voice in explanation. He told the three regiments of the Irish Brigade--now scarcely more than three battalions of two companies each--that every soldier there could receive the benefit of absolution by making a sincere act of contrition and resolving, on first opportunity, to confess.