University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
CAPTAIN COLBURNE REINFORCES THE RAVENELS IN TIME TO
AID THEM IN RUNNING AWAY.

Colburne had been two or three weeks in the hospital
when he was startled by seeing Doctor Ravenel advancing
eagerly upon him with a face full of trouble. The Doctor
had heard of the young man's hurt, and as his sensitive
sympathy invariably exaggerated danger and suffering,
especially if they concerned any one whom he loved, he
had imagined the worst, and taken the first boat for New
Orleans. On the other hand, Colburne surmised from that
concerned countenance that the Doctor brought evil
tidings of his daughter. Was she unhappy in her marriage,
or widowed, or dead? He laughed outright, with a
sense of relief equivalent to positive pleasure, when he
learned that he alone was the cause of Ravenel's worry.

“I am getting along famously,” said he. “Ask Doctor
Jackson here. I am not sick at all above my left elbow.

Below the elbow the arm seems to belong to some other
man.”

The Doctor shook his head with the resolute incredulity
of a man who is too anxious not to expect the worst.

“But you can't continue to do well here. This air is
infected. This great mass of inflammation, suppuration,
mortification and death, has poisoned the atmosphere of
the hospital. I scented it the moment I entered the door.
Am I not right, Dr. Jackson?”

“Just so. Can't help it. Horrid weather for cases,” replied
the chief surgeon, wiping the perspiration from his
forehead. Air is poisoned. Wish to God I could get a
fresh building. My patients would do better in shanties
than they will here.”

“I knew it,” said Ravenel. “Now then, I am a country
doctor. I can take this young man to a plantation,
and give him pure air.”

“That's what you want,” observed Jackson, turning
to Colburne. “Your arm don't need ice now. Water
will do. Better go, I think. I'll see that you have a
month's leave of absence. Come, you can go to Taylorsville,
and still not miss a chance for fighting. Tried to send
him north,” he added, addressing Ravenel. “But he's
foolish about it. Wants to see Port Hudson out—what
you call a knight-errant.”

Colburne was in a tremble, body and soul, at the
thought of meeting Mrs. Carter; he had never been so
profoundly shaken by even the actuality of encountering
Miss Ravenel. Most of us have been in love enough to
understand all about it without explanation, and to feel
no wonder at him because, after reeling mentally this
way and that, he finally said, “I will go.” Now and
then there is a woman who cannot bear to look upon
the man whom she has loved and lost, and who will turn
quick corners and run down side streets to escape him,
haunting him spiritually perhaps, but bodily keeping
afar from him all her life. But stronger natures, who can

endure the trial, frequently go to meet it, and seem to find
some dolorous comfort in it. As regards Colburne, it may
be that he would not have gone to Taylorsville had he not
been weak and feverish, and felt a craving for that petting
kindness which seems to be a necessity of invalids.

I doubt whether the life in Ravenel's house contributed
much to advance his convalescence. His emotions
were played upon too constantly and powerfully for the
highest good of the temporarily shattered instrument.
He had supposed that he would undergo one great shock
on meeting Mrs. Carter, and that then his trouble would
be over. The first thrill was not so potent as he expected;
but it was succeeded by a constant unrest, like the
burning of a slow fever; he was uneasy all day and slept
badly at night. In the house he could not talk freely
and gaily, because of Lillie's presence; and out of it he
could not feel with calmness, because he was perpetually
thinking of her. After all, it may have been the splinters
of bone in the arm, quite as much as the arrow in the
heart, which worried him. Of Mrs. Carter I must admit
that she was not merciful; she made the doubly-wounded
Captain talk a great deal of his Colonel. He
might recite Carter's martial deeds and qualities as lengthily
as he pleased, and recommence da capo to recite them
over again, not only without fatiguing her, but without
exciting in her mind a thought that he was doing any
thing remarkable. She was very much pleased, but she
was not a bit grateful. Why should she be! It was
perfectly natural to her mind that people should admire
the Colonel, and talk much of his glory. Colburne performed
this ill-paid task with infinite patience, sympathy,
and self-sacrificing love; and no warrior was ever better
sung in conversational epics than was Carter the successful
by Colburne the disappointed. Under the rude oppression of
this subject the bruised shrub a exhaled daily sweetness.
It is almost painful to contemplate these two loving hearts:
the one sending its anxious sympathies a hundred miles

away into the deadly trenches of Port Hudson; the other
pouring out its sympathies for a present object, but covertly
and without a thought of reward. If the passionate
affection of the woman is charming, the unrequited, unhoping
love of the man is sublime.

The Doctor perhaps saw what Lillie could not or would
not see.

“My dear,” he observed, “you must remember that
Colonel Carter is not the husband of Captain Colburne.”

“Oh papa!” she answered. “Do you suppose that he
doesn't like to talk about Colonel Carter? Of course he
does. He admires him, and likes him immensely.”

“I dare say—I dare say. But nevertheless you give
him very large doses of your husband.”

“No, papa; not too large. He is such a good friend
that I am sure he doesn't object. Just think how unkind
it would be not to want to talk about my husband. You
don't understand him if you think he is so shabby.”

Nevertheless the Doctor was partially right, and shabby
as it may have been, Colburne was no better for the conversation
which so much gratified Mrs. Carter. His arm
discharged its slivers of bone and healed steadily, but he
was thin and pale, slept badly, and had a slow fever. It
must not be supposed that he wilfully brooded over his
disappointment; much less that he was angry about it or
felt any desire to avenge it. He was too sensible not to
struggle against useless pinings; too gentle-hearted and
honorable to be even tempted of base or cruel spirits. Not
that he was a moral miracle; not that he was even a marvellously
bright exception to the general run of humanity;
on the contrary he was like many of us, especially when
we are under the influence of elevating emotion. Some by
me forgotten author has remarked that no earthly being is
purer, more like the souls in paradise, than a young man
during his first earnest love.

At one time Colburne entirely forgot himself in his
sympathy for Mrs. Carter. When the news came of the

unsuccessful and murderous assault of the fourteenth of
June, she was nearly crazy for three days because of her
uncertainty concerning the fate of her husband. She must
hear constantly from her comforters the assurance that all
was undoubtedly well; that, if the Colonel had been engaged
in the fighting, he would certainly have been named
in the official report; that, if he had received any harm, he
would have been all the more sure of being mentioned,
etc., etc. Clinging as if for life to these two men, she demanded
all their strength to keep her out of the depths of
despair. Every day they went two or three times to the
fort, one or other of them, to gather information from passing
boats concerning the new tragedy. Very honestly
and earnestly gratified was Colburne when he was able to
bring to Mrs. Carter a letter from her husband, written
the day after the struggle, and saying that no harm had
befallen him. How that letter was wept over, prayed
over, held to a beating heart, and then to loving lips! The
house was solemn all day with that immense and unspeakable
joy.

Circumstances soon occurred which caused this lonely
and anxious family to be troubled about its own safety.
To carry on the siege of Port Hudson, Banks had been
obliged to reduce the garrison of New Orleans and of its
vast exterior line of defences (a hundred miles from the
city on every side) to the lowest point consistent with
safety. Meantime Taylor reorganized the remnant of his
beaten army, raised new levies by conscription, procured
reinforcements from Texas, and resumed the offensive.
Brashear City on the Atchafalaya, with its immense mass
of commissary stores, and garrison of raw Nine Months'
men, was captured by surprise. A smart little battle was
fought at Lafourche Crossing, near Thibodeaux, in which
Greene's Texans charged with their usual brilliant impetuosity,
but were repulsed by our men with fearful slaughter
after a hand-to-hand struggle over the contested cannon.
Nevertheless the Union troops soon retired before superior

numbers, and Greene's wild mounted rangers were at
liberty to patrol the Lafourche Interior.

“We can't stay here long,” said Colburne, in the council
of war in which the family talked these matters over.
“Greene will come this way sooner or later. If he can
take Fort Winthrop, he will thereby blockade the Mississippi,
cut off Banks' supplies, and force him to raise the
siege of Port Hudson. He is sure to try it sooner or later.”

“Must we leave our plantation, then?” asked Ravenel
in real anguish. To lose his home, his invested capital,
pigs, chickens, prospective crop of vegetables, and, worse
yet, of enlightened and ennobled negroes, was indeed a
torturing calamity. Had he known on the afternoon of
that day, that before morning the shaggy ponies and long,
lank, dirty mosstroopers of Greene's brigade would be upon
him, he would not have paused to examine the situation
from so many different points of view. Colburne knew by
experience the celerity of Texan rangers; he had chased
them in forced marches from Brashear City to Alexandria
without ever seeing a tail of their horses; and yet even he
indulged in a false security.

“I think we have twelve hours before us,” he observed.
“To-morrow morning we shall have to get up and get, as
the natives say. Still it's my opinion—I don't believe
Mrs. Carter had better stay here; she ought to go to the
fort to-night.”

“Are gou going, papa?” asked Mrs. Carter, who somehow
was not much alarmed.

“My dear, I must stay here till the last moment. We
have so much property here! You will have to go without
me.”

“Then I won't go,” she answered; and so that was
settled.

“You ought to be off,” said the Doctor to Colburne.
“As a United States officer you are sure to be kept a
prisoner, if taken. I certainly think that you ought to go.”

Colburne thought so too, but would not desert his friends;

he shrugged his shoulders in spirit and resolved to endure
what might come. The negroes were in a state of exquisite
alarm. The entire black population of the Lafourche
Interior was making for the swamps or other places of
shelter; and only the love of the Ravenel gang for their
good massa and beautiful missus kept them from being
swept away by the contagious current. The horror with
which they regarded the possibility of being returned into
slavery delighted the Doctor, who, even in those circumstances,
dilated enthusiastically upon it as a proof that the
race was capable of high aspirations.

“They have already acquired the love of individual
liberty,” said this amiable optimist. “The cognate love
of liberty in the abstract, the liberty of all men, is not far
ahead of them. How superior they already are to the
white wretches who are fighting to send them back to
slavery!—Shedding blood, their own and their brothers',
for slavery! Is it not utterly amazing? Risking life
and taking life to restore slavery! It is the foolishest,
wickedest, most demoniacal infatuation that ever possessed
humanity. The Inquisition, the Massacre of St. Bartholomew,
were common sense and evangelical mercy compared
to this pro-slavery rebellion. And yet these imps
of atrocity pretend to be Christians. They are the most
orthodox creatures that ever served the devil. They rant
and roar in the Methodist camp-meetings; they dogmatize
on the doctrines in the Presbyterian church; they make
the responses in the Episcopal liturgy. There is only one
pinnacle of hypocrisy that they never have had the audacity
to mount. They have not yet brought themselves to
make the continuance and spread of slavery an object of
prayer. It would be logical, you know; it would be just
like their impudence. I have expected that they would
come to it. I have looked forward to the time when their
hypocritical priesthood would put up bloody hands in the
face of an indignant Heaven, and say, `O God of Justice!
O Jesus, lover of the oppressed! bless, extend and perpetuate

slavery; prosper us in selling the wife away from
the husband, and the child away from the parent; enable
us to convert the blood and tears of our fellow creatures
into filthy lucre; help us to degrade man, who was made
in Thine image; and to Father, Son and Spirit be all the
Glory!'—Can you imagine anything more astoundingly
wicked than such a petition? And yet I am positively astonished
that they have not got up monthly concerts of
prayer, and fabricated a liturgy, all pregnant with just
such or similar blasphemies. But God would not wait for
them to reach this acme of iniquity. His patience is exhausted,
and He is even now bringing them to punishment.”

“They have some power left yet, as we feel to-night,”
said Colburne.

“Yes. I have seen an adder's head flatten and snap
ten minutes after the creature was cut in two. I dare say
it might have inflicted a poisonous wound.”

“I think you had better send the hands to the fort.”

“Do you anticipate such immediate danger?” inquired
the Doctor, his very spectacles expressing surprise.

“I feel uneasy every time I think of those Texans. They
are fast boys. They outmarch their own shadows sometimes,
and have to wait for them to come in after nightfall.”

“I really ought to send the hands off,” admitted the
Doctor after a minute of reflection. “I never could forgive
myself if through my means they should be returned
to bondage.”

“It would be a poor result of a freedman's labor experiment.”

The Doctor went to the back door and shouted for Major
Scott.

“Major,” said he, “you must take all the people down
to the fort as soon as they can get ready.”

“They's all ready, Marsr. They's only a waitin' for the
word.”

“Very well, Bring them along. I'll write a note to
the commandant, asking him to take you in for the night.
You can come back in the morning if all is quiet.”

“What's a gwine to come of you an' Miss Lillie?”

“Never mind that now. I will see to that presently.
Bring the people along.”

In five minutes fifteen men, six women and four pickaninnies,
the whole laboring force of the plantation, were
in the road before the house, each loaded with a portion
of his or her property, such as blankets, food, and cooking
utensils. The men looked anxious; the women cried loudly
with fright and grief; the pickaninnies cried because their
mothers did.

“Oh, Mars Ravenel! you'll be cotched suah,” sobbed the
old mamma who did the family cooking. “Miss Lillie, do
come 'long with us.”

“We'se gwine to tote some o' your fixin's 'long,” observed
Major Scott.

“Better let him do it,” said Colburne. “It may be
your only chance to save necessaries.”

So the negroes added to their loads whatever seemed
most valuable and essential of the Ravenel baggage. Then
Scott received the note to the commandant of the fort,
handed it to Julius, the second boss, and remarked with
dignity, “I stays with Marsr.” The Major was undisguisedly
alarmed, but he had a character to sustain, and a
military title to justify. He was immediately joined in his
forlorn hope by Jim the “no 'count nigger,” who, being
a sly and limber darkey, fleet of foot, and familiar with
swamp life, had a faith that he could wriggle out of any
danger or captivity.

“Keep them,” said Colburne to Ravenel. “We shall
want them as look-outs during the night.”

There was an evident hesitation in the whole gang as
to whether they should go or stay; but Colburne settled
the question by pronouncing in a tone of military command,
“Forward, march!”

“Ah! they knows how to mind that sort o' talk,” said
Major Scott, highly gratified with the spectacular nature
of the scene. “I'se a been eddycatin' 'em to millingtary
ways. They knows a heap a'ready, they doos.”

He smiled with a simple and transitory joy, although he
could hear the voice of his wife (commonly called Mamma
Major) rising in loud lament amid the chorus of sorrow
with which the women and children moved away. The
poor creature kept no grude against her husband for his
infidelity of a month previous.

In the lonely and imperilled little household Colburne
now took command.

“Since you will fight,” he said smiling, “you must fight
under my orders. I am the military power, and I proclaim
martial law.”

He forbade the Ravenels to undress; they must be prepared
to run at a moment's notice. He laughed at the
Doctor's proposition to barricade the doors and windows,
and, instead thereof, opened two or three trunks and scattered
articles of little value about the rooms. The property
would be a bait, he said, which might amuse the
raiders while the family escaped. To gratify Major Scott's
tremulous enthusiasm he loaded his own revolver and the
Doctor's doubled-barreled fowling-piece, smiling sadly to
himself to think how absurd was the idea of fighting off a
band of Texans with such a feeble artillery. He posted
the two negroes as a vidette a quarter of a mile down the
road, with strict orders not to build a fire, not to sleep,
not to make a noise, but in case of the approach of a party
to hasten to the house and give information. The Major
begged hard for the fowling-piece, but Colburne would not
let him have it.

“He would be worse than a Nine Months' man,” he said
to the Doctor. “He would be banging away at stumps
and shadows all night. There wouldn't be a living field
mouse on the plantation by morning.”

The Doctor's imagination was seriously affected by these

business-like preparations, and he silently regretted that
he had not gone to the fort, or at least sent his daughter
thither. Lillie, though quiet, was very pale, and wished
herself in the trenches of Port Hudson, safe under the protection
of her invincible husband. Colburne urged and
finally ordered them to lie down and try to sleep. Two
mules were standing in the yard, saddled and ready to do
their part in the hegira when it should be necessary. He
examined their harness, then returned into the house,
buckled on his sword and revolver, extinguished every
light, took his seat at an open window looking towards
the danger, waited and listened. The youthful veteran
was perfectly calm, notwithstanding that he had taken
more precautions than a greenhorn, however timorous,
would have thought of. Once in each hour he visited the
negroes to see if they were awake; then mounted the levee
to listen for tramp of men or horses across the bayou; then
went to the sugar-house and listened towards the woods
which backed the plantation; then resumed his silent
watch at the open window. At two o'clock the moon still
poured a pale light over the flat landscape. Colburne,
feverish with fatigue, want of sleep, and the small remainder
of irritation in his wound, was just saying to
himself, “We must go to-morrow,” when he saw two dark
forms glide rapidly towards the house under cover of a
fence, and rush crouching across the door-yard. Without
waiting to hear what the negroes had to say, he stepped
into the parlor and awoke the two sleepers on the sofas.

“What is the matter?” gasped the Doctor, with the
wild air common to people startled out of an anxious
slumber.

“Perhaps nothing,” answered Colburne. “Only be
ready.”

By this time the two videttes were in the house, breathless
with running and alarm.

“Oh, Cap'm! they's a comin',” whispered Scott. “They's
a comin' right smart. We heerd the hosses. They's a

quarter mile off, mebbe; but they's a comin' right smart.
Oh Cap'm, please give me the double-barril gun. I wants
to fight for my liberty an' for Mars Ravenel an' for Miss
Lillie.”

“Take it,” said Colburne. “Now then, Doctor, you and
Jim will hurry Mrs. Carter directly down the road to the
fort. Jim can keep up on foot. The Major and I will go
to the woods, fire from there, and draw the enemy in that
direction.”

Every one obeyed him without a word. The approaching
tramp of horses was distinctly audible at the house
when the Ravenels mounted the mules and set off at a lumbering
trot, the animals being urged forward by resounding
whacks from Jim's bludgeon. Colburne scowled and
grated his teeth with impatience and vexation.

“I ought to have sent them away last evening,” he
muttered with a throb of self-reproach.

“Scott, you and I will have to fight,” he said aloud.
“They never can escape unless we keep the rascals here.
We must fire once from the house; then run to the woods
and fire again there. We must show ourselves men now.”

“Yes, Mars Cap'm,” replied the Major. His voice was
tremulous, and his whole frame shook, but he was nevertheless
ready to die, if need be, for his liberty and his
benefactors. Of physical courage the poor fellow had
little; but in moral courage he was at this moment sublime.

Colburne posted himself and his comrade at a back
corner of the house, where they could obtain a view of the
road which led toward Thibodeaux.

“Now, Scott,” he said, “you must not fire until I have
fired. You must not fire until you have taken aim at
somebody. You must fire only one barrel. Then you
must make for the woods along the line of this fence. If
they follow us on horseback we can bother them by dodging
over the fence now and then. If they catch us, we
must fight as long as we can. Cheer up, old fellow. It's

all right. It's not bad business as soon as you're used
to it.”

“Cap'm, I'se ready,” answered Scott solemnly. “I'se
not gwine for ter be cotched alive.”

Then he prayed for some minutes in a low whisper,
while Colburne stood at the corner and watched. “Watch
and pray,” the latter repeated to himself, smiling inwardly
at the odd compliance with the double injunction, so
strangely does the mind work on such occasions. It was
not a deliberate process of intellection with him; it was an
instinctive flash of ideas, not traceable to any feeling
which was in him at the time; on the contrary, his prevailing
emotion was one of extreme anxiety. The tramp
which fled toward the fort gently diminished in the distance,
while the tramp which approached from the opposite
side grew nearer and louder. When the advancing
horsemen got within a hundred yards of the house, they
slackened their pace to a walk, and finally halted, probably
to listen. Some of them must have dismounted at this
time, for Colburne suddenly beheld four footmen at the
front gate. He scowled at this sign of experienced caution,
and gave a hasty glance toward the garden in his
rear, to see if others were not cutting off his retreat. He
could not discover the features of any of the four, but he
could see that they were of the tall and lank Texan type,
dressed in brownish clothing, and provided with short
guns, no doubt double-barreled fowling-pieces. Inside of
the gate they halted and seemed to hearken, while one of
them pointed up the road toward the fort, and whispered
to his comrades. Colburne had hoped that they would get
into the house, and fall to plundering; but they had evidently
overheard the fugitives, for there was a simultaneous
backward movement in the group—they were going
to remount and pursue. Now was his time, if ever, to
effect the proposed diversion. Aiming his six-inch revolver
at the tallest, he fired a single barrel. The man yelled a
curse, staggered, dropped his gun, and leaned against the

fence. Two of his comrades sprang across the road, and
threw themselves behind the levee as a breast-work, while
the fourth, all grit, turned short and brought his fowling-piece
to a level as Colburne drew behind his cover. In
that same moment, Major Scott, wild with a sudden madness
of conflict, shouted like a lion, bounded beyond the
angle of the house, planting himself on two feet set wide
apart, his mad black face set toward the enemy, and his
gun aimed. Both fired at the same instant, and both fell
together, probably alike lifeless. The last prayer of the
negro was, “My God!” and the last curse of the rebel
was “Damnation!”

By the light of the moon Colburne looked at his comrade,
and saw the brains following the blood from a hole
in the centre of his forehead. He cast a glance at the
levee, fired one more barrel at a broad-brimmed hat which
rose above it, listened for a second to an advancing rush
of hoofs in order to decide whether it came by the road
or by the fields, turned, crossed the garden on a noiseless
run, placed himself on the further side of a high and
close plantation-fence, and followed its cover rapidly toward
the forest. The distance was less than a quarter
of a mile, but he was quite breathless and faint before he
had traversed it, so weak was he still, and so little accustomed
to exercise. In the edge of the wood he sat
down on a fallen and mouldering trunk to listen. If the
cavalry were pursuing their course up the road, they
were doing it very prudently and slowly, for he could
hear no more trampling of horses. Tolerably satisfied as
to the safety of the Ravenels, he reloaded his two empty
barrels, settled his course in his mind, and pushed as
straight as he could for Taylorsville without quitting
the cover of the forest. Although the fort was not four
miles away in a direct line, it was daybreak when he
came in sight of a low flattened outline, as of a truncated
mound, which showed dimly through the yellowish
morning mist. He had still to cross a dead level of

four or five hundred yards, with no points of shelter but
three small wooden houses. At this moment, when safety
seemed so near and sure, he saw on the bayou road, two
hundred yards to his right, half a dozen black and indistinct
bunches moving in a direction parallel to his
own. They were unquestionably horsemen going toward
the fort, and nearer to it than he. Changing his direction,
he made straight for the river, struck it above the fortification,
and got behind the levee, thus securing both a
covered way to hide his course, and an earthwork from
behind which he could fight. He lost no time in peeping
over the top of the mound, but pushed ahead at his best
speed, supposing that no cavalry scouts would dare approach
very near to a garrison supplied with artillery.
He could see a sentry pacing the ramparts, the dark uniform
showing clear against the grey sky beyond. He
even thought that the man perceived him, and supposed
that his dangers were over for the present. He was full
of exhilaration, and glanced back at the events of the
night with a sense of satisfaction, taking it all for granted
with a resolute faith of satisfaction, that the Ravenels had
escaped. Major Scott was dead; he was really quite sorry
for that; but then two Texans had been killed, or at least
disabled; the war was so much nearer its close. In a
small way he felt much as a general does who has effected
a masterly retreat, and inflicted severe loss upon the pursuing
enemy.

Presently a break in the bank forced him to mount the
levee. As he reached the top he stared in astonishment
and some dismay at a man in butternut-colored clothing,
mounted on a rough pony, with the double-barreled gun
of Greene's mosstroopers across his saddle-bow, who was
posted on the road not forty feet distant. The Butternut
immediately said, in the pleasant way current in armies,
“Halt, you son of a bitch!”

He fired, but missed, as Colburne skirted the break on a
run, and sprang again behind the levee. The Captain

then fired in return, with no other effect than to make the
Butternut gallop beyond revolver range. From this distance
he called out, ironically, “I say, Yank, have you
heard from Brashear City?”

Colburne made no reply, but continued his retreat unmolested.
When the sentinel challenged, “Halt! who
comes there?” he thought he had never heard a pleasanter
welcome.

“Friend,” he answered.

“Halt, friend! Corporal of the guard, number five,”
shouted the sentry.

The corporal appeared, recognized Colburne, and let
him in through the gate in a palisade which connected
one angle of the fort with the river. The garrison was
already under arms, and the men were lying down behind
the low works, with their equipments on and their muskets
by their sides. The first person from the plantation
whom Colburne saw was Mauma Major.

“Where is Mrs. Carter, aunty?” he asked.

“They's all here, bress the Lord! And now you's
come!” shouted the good fat creature, clapping her hands
with delight. “Whar my ole man?”

“In heaven,” said Colburne, with a solemn tenderness
which carried instant conviction. The woman screamed,
and went down upon her knees with an air and face of
such anguish as might cast shame upon those philosophers
as have asserted that the negro is not a man.

“Oh! the Lord gave! The Lord gave!” she repeated,
wildly.

Perhaps she had forgotten, perhaps she never knew, the
remainder of the text; but its piteous sense of bereavement,
and of more than human consolation, was evidently
clear in some manner to her soul.