The voice was weak and husky and unfamiliar, but the name was Annie. She turned. It was the man whose arm was gone, whose eye was eaten out by cancer. “Annie, Annie, I am Tait! Oh, God, don’t you know me?” The thin wasted hand held out in entreaty. She knew that it was her husband. “Tait, darling boy! Oh, what have they done to you? My darling, my darling!” Love—and—Death—a woman’s love, a soldier’s death. * * * * * A few days later, women were gathering in little groups about their homes and the boys and old men left in the city were congregated in the street. Suddenly, as from a clear sky, the news has come—Sherman was coming. Mrs. Corbin and Helen and Hattie were at breakfast when the morning _Chronicle_ came in and the news was read. Sherman coming! Flee, hide your valuables, bury your silver! The few soldiers in the city had been ordered north to try to save the Confederacy there. The city was defenseless. Even the bells of St. Michael’s had been sent to Columbia for safety. “I am glad Bessie is in Columbia,” Mrs. Corbin said, when it was read. “The little babe will be born in peace at least.” Bessie was the young bride of Jack Corbin. “Mother,” said Hattie, “you and Helen must leave immediately.” As though to emphasize her words, a cannon ball crashed through the house, whizzed by the speakers and penetrated into the cellar. In an instant they realized that it would have exploded if it were going to, and so sat quietly talking on, so used had Charleston grown to her sorrows. “You must go immediately. I will get everything in order and follow later on.” So they left in a few days, for Mrs. Corbin must needs be by Bessie, and Helen would go with her aunt. As they entered the car set apart for ladies and their escorts, as was the custom now, a woman in front of them with a little baby, heard a voice outside: “Madam, please lend me your baby.” Her eyes were red and swollen with weeping. She had been pressing her child closely to her breast. She looked down. It was a poor soldier with a wounded arm who was going home. Without a word she handed her baby through the window, and in a few minutes it bobbed up serenely at the car door. The guard thinking it was the man’s child, let him pass into the more comfortable car. “Thank you,” he said, seating himself wearily and handing the baby back. Soon another soldier borrowed it, and another also, before the train started on its long, slow ride to Columbia. The rolling stock had fairly given out during the four years in which nothing could be done to replenish or repair it. “Madam, will you give another lady a seat?” she heard the conductor say to the woman with the baby, who was leaning on a package that lay on two seats and was covered with a faded shawl. The woman looked up and moved and they saw that it was a rude wooden coffin. Her eyes were red and inflamed with much weeping, and she spoke softly in the accents of the hills.