"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"---- "Very good;--but there was another favor I wished to ask." "Well?"--staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor crotchety Blecker's face grew. "By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I believe." The redness grew hotter. "It was that I meant to ask of her,--you knew?" "Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow already!" Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for that crime, he took it on his own soul,--now. And so turned with a smile to meet her. "Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of nursing; 's got no notion of dying." "I knew he wouldn't die," she said, half to herself, not speaking to Paul,--only he held both her hands in his, and looked in her eyes. Sheppard, after the first glance over the little brown figure and the face under the Shaker hood, had stood, hat in hand, with something of the same home-trusty smile he gave his wife on his mouth. The little square-built body in black seeded silk and widow's cap, that had convoyed the girl in, touched the Colonel's elbow, and they turned their backs to the bed,--talking of hot coffee and sandwiches. Paul drew her down. "My wife, Grey? _Mine?_" his breath thin and cold,--because no oath now could make that sure. "Yes, Paul." He shut his eyes. She wondered that he did not smile when she put her timorous fingers in his tangled hair. He thought he would die, maybe. He could not die. Her feet seemed to take firmer root into the ground. A clammy damp broke out over her body. He did not know how she had wrestled in prayer; he did not believe in prayer. He could not die. That which a believer asked of God, believing He would grant, was granted. She held him in life by her hand on Christ's arm. "Were you afraid to travel alone, eh?"