“Dead!” cried Dan, and raised himself upon his cushion. The room went black before him, and he steadied himself by clutching at Big Abel's arm. At the instant the horrors of the battle-field, where he had seen men fall like grass before the scythe, became as nothing to the death of this one young girl. He thought of her living beauty, of the bright glow of her flesh, and it seemed to him that the earth could not hide a thing so fair. “I left her in Richmond in the spring,” explained Jack, gripping himself hard. “I was off with Stuart, you know, and I thought her mother would get to her, but she couldn't pass the lines and then the fight came--the one at Seven Pines and--well, she died and the child with her.” Dan's eyes grew very tender; a look crept into them which only Betty and his mother had seen there before. “I would have died for her if I could, Jack, you know that,” he said slowly. Jack walked off a few paces and then came back again. “I remember the Governor's telling me once,” he went on in the same hard voice, “that if a man only rode boldly enough at death it would always get out of the way. I didn't believe it at the time, but, by God, it's true. Why, I've gone straight into the enemy's lines and heard the bullets whistling in my ears, but I've always come out whole. When I rode with Stuart round McClellan's army, I was side by side with poor Latane when he fell in the skirmish at Old Church, and I sat stock still on my horse and waited for a fellow to club me with his sabre, but he wouldn't; he looked at me as if he thought I had gone crazy, and actually shook his head. Some men can't die, confound it, and I'm one of them.” He went out, his spurs striking the stone steps as he passed into the street, and Dan fell back upon the narrow cushions to toss with fever and the memory of Virginia--of Virginia in the days when she wore her rose-pink gown and he believed he loved her. At the door an ambulance drew up and a stretcher was brought into the building, and let down in one corner. The man on it was lying very still, and when he was lifted off and placed upon the blood-soaked top of the long pine table, he made no sound, either of fear or of pain. The close odours of the place suddenly sickened Dan and he asked Big Abel to draw him nearer the open window, where he might catch the least breeze from the river; but outside the July sunlight lay white and hot upon the bricks, and when he struggled up the reflected heat struck him down again. On the sidewalk he saw several prisoners going by amid a hooting crowd, and with his old instinct to fight upon the weaker side, he hurled an oath at the tormenters of his enemies. “Go to the field, you crows, and be damned!” he called. One of the prisoners, a ruddy-cheeked young fellow in private's clothes, looked up and touched his cap.