She bent over him as he knelt, and drew her cool, soft hands across his forehead and down his face, and her even, silvery syllables cut like death: 'Mr. Moore, last night I promised to marry your friend, Captain Morris.' For the space of a minute stillness like the grave filled the room, and then all the intense strain of heart and nerve gave way, as the bitter tide of disappointment broke in and rolled over his future; and without word or sound he dropped forward at her feet. She knelt down beside him with a low, bitter cry. It reached his dulled sense; he rose feebly. 'Forgive me; I have not been myself of late, I think; and this--this was so sudden,' and he walked away with dull, nerveless tread. On the table, near her, lay her handkerchief. It breathed of heliotrope. Her words came back to him: 'Only in coffins, about still, dead faces.' He stopped in his walk and looked down on her. Forever he should remember all that ghostly sheen of silvery white about a rigid face with unutterably sad fixed mouth and drooping lids. He thrust the fleecy handful into his breast. 'I may keep this?' and took permission from her silence. 'Good-by;' the words came through ashy lips, a half sob. She knelt as impassive as marble, as cold and white. He waited a moment for the word or look that did not come, turned away, the hall door fell heavily shut, and he was gone. Fifteen minutes after, Miss Berkeley was whirling to the house where she was to officiate as bridesmaid, and where she was haughtier, and colder, and ten times more attractive than ever. Private Moore, waiting for the midnight return train, found life a grim prospect. Three weeks after, a summons came from the captain's tent. George had just returned from his own furlough, and this was their first meeting. Even while their hands clasped, his new, happy secret told itself. 'Congratulate me, Clement Moore! You remember Lois Berkeley? She has promised to be Lois Berkeley Morris one day!' and, with happy lover's egotism, did not notice the gray shade about his hearer's lips. Various items of news followed. 'A truce boat goes over to-morrow,' remembering the fact suddenly; 'there will be opportunity to send a few letters; so, if you wish to write to that lady 'beyond the lines'-- The voice that replied was thin and harsh: 'Miss Rose declined alliance with a 'Yankee hireling,' and was married last October.' Honest George wrung his friend's hand anew, and heaped mental anathemas on his own stupidity for not seeing how haggard and worn the dark face had grown--anathemas which were just enough, perhaps, only he hardly saw the reason in quite the right light. But he spared all allusions to his own prospects thereafter, and finding that Moore rather avoided than sought him, measured and forgave the supposed cause by his own heart.