“No’m, I don’t reckon so. Me’n Miz McArthur—she useter live ’cross de road dar in dat little ole log cabin—we nusses him careful all day an’ all night. But he thinks I’m Marse Tait—he died jes’ ’fore Miss Helen did—an’ he thinks she’s Miss Helen, an’ he keeps tellin’ us whut a big hero Marse Ervin wuz wid his battlementary injines, an’ now he’s willin’ fer him to marry Miss Helen an’ take charge of the _Dimocrat_—but, Lawd, Lawd, whut does people do dese days to put in de paper?” His dogs had walked through the gate and he now drew it carefully to, taking off his shabby old hat in response to Helen’s “good-night.” She turned to the cabin across the road. Standing at the small gate, now off its hinges, she took in all the surroundings and tried to imagine Ervin at home amid them. She could fancy the whole story of his youthful love for the patrician girl at the big white mansion. Perhaps it was a burning ambition to make a name worthy of her which had led him to Charleston. Perhaps—but no! Deep in her heart Helen Brooks knew that, whatever fancies he had known, Ervin McArthur had given all his heart to but one woman, and that woman herself. She stood long in regretful self-questioning, yet somehow a spirit of deep peace pervaded all her being. Twilight had fled before the coming of the moon, and she drank in eagerly its gentle glory on the scene about her. In the distance she heard the swift rattle of wheels, this time with quick hoof-beat accompaniment. At the parting of the roads the vehicle stopped and she heard the tones of men. “Good-night, old fellow!” called a cheery voice. “Good luck to you. We must all do the best we can to build up our country again.” Helen turned to leave the gate. A figure came toward her in the dim light. She drew back again, but as he seemed about to turn in at the gate, she stepped forward. “Do you seek Mrs. McArthur, sir?” she asked, thinking it must be a comrade coming to tell Ervin’s mother some news of her boy’s last hours. “Yes, madam, I do. Do you know her? Is she well?” He leaned against the gatepost and Helen could see, despite the deep shadow cast by his broad hat, the pallor of his face. “Oh, yes,” she hastened to reassure him, “she is quite well. I do not know her. I am refugeeing here, but I have just heard that Mrs. McArthur had been nursing Colonel Preston across the way for some months. You will find her there.” She hesitated a moment, then asked: “You bring news of her son’s death?” “Death? Is he dead? I did not know he was dead.” He had stepped back into the shadow as though to conceal his emotions, and she could not see the joy in his eyes, and mistook the heaving of his breast for sorrow, and, because she could not longer conceal her tears, she bowed her head upon the gatepost. “Pardon me, madam,” he said, at length, “but would it be rude in me to ask you—” “It is my oversight—Brooks is the name, Helen Brooks. I and my two aunts and an old negro servant are refugees.”