"Then I shall die on your doorstep," said the voice. "I can't drag myself any farther." There was another silence. "It is beginning to snow," he said. "I know," she said, and he heard the trouble in her voice. "Open the door and look at me," he said, "and see if I can do you any harm." She opened the door, and stood on the threshold, barring the way. He was leaning against the doorpost with his head against it, as she had often seen her husband lean when he was talking to her on a summer evening. Something in his attitude, so like her husband's, touched her strangely. Supposing he were in need, and pleaded for help in vain! The man turned his face towards her. It was sunk and hollow, ravaged with pain, an evil-looking face. His right arm was in a sling under his tattered military cloak. He seemed to have made his final effort, and now stood staring dumbly at her. "My husband will never forgive me," she said, with a sort of sob. He said nothing more. He seemed at the last point of exhaustion. Through the dim white night a few flakes of snow fell upon his harsh, repellent face and on his bandaged arm. A sudden wave of pity carried all before it. She beckoned him into the house, and locked and barred the door. She put him in her husband's chair by the fire. He hardly noticed anything. He seemed stupefied. He sat staring alternately at the fire and at her. When she asked him to which regiment he belonged, he did not answer. She set before him the supper she had prepared for herself, and chafed his hard, emaciated, dirty hand till the warmth returned to it. Then he ate, with difficulty at first, then with slow voracity, all she had put before him. A semblance of life returned gradually to him. "I was pretty near done up when I knocked," he said several times. She dressed his wound, which did not appear very deep, wrapped it in fresh bandages, and readjusted his sling. He took it all as a matter of course. She made up a little bed of rugs and blankets for him in the back kitchen. When she came back to the living-room, she found he had dragged himself to his feet, and was looking vacantly at a little picture of President Lincoln on the mantelshelf. She showed him the bed and told him to lie down on it. He obeyed her implicitly, like a child. She left him, and presently heard him cast himself down. A few minutes later she went to the door and listened. His heavy, regular breathing told her he was asleep. She went back to the kitchen, and sat down by the fire. Was he really asleep? Was it all feigned, the wound, the story, the exhaustion? Had she been trapped? Oh! what had she done? What had she done?