“If he is killed, it doesn’t matter what he thought.”

She said, “I would always feel it. It’s—cruelty. Wanton. This is the first time in my life, and God would not forgive me.”

“I doubt that you truly believe in God.”

“Then I wouldn’t forgive.”

He pleaded: Look at me, oh, darling, why must— She raised her eyes to his. He stared for awhile. “Oh, all right,” he heard himself droning. “I will go. But what about Quagger?”

“You can settle with him, some way. I do not know how. You’ll know.”

He said again. “All right. What is it: Tyler—”

“The Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers. I think his brigade is commanded by a man named Owen, and Colonel Baxter was a friend of my father’s. They call it the Philadelphia brigade. It’s in the Second Corps, but I don’t know what part.”

Dan declared, “You want me to go over there and lie to him, and I will do it,” and there was hate in his voice. Not hate for her; she was to be pitied, she could not help herself. “But if he’s killed, will you agree to marry me?”

“You should know what I will do. But this way … he mustn’t die believing me—thinking that I did—”

“Well,” he told her, “I’ll have difficulty in getting to the cemetery. Of course there is no such thing as a pass. Doubtless I can find a way tonight.” .. The distant musket-skirmish had died out; it was replaced by another sound, slight and insecure. It was a human sound behind them among the rocks and bushes, in heavy oak shade.

Bale said, “It’s a man,” and he found him under some vines. He was a Union soldier. The black blood crusted all over one side of him and he looked as if he were dead, but he wasn’t. Dan picked him up, and one swollen arm failed to hang limp even by its own weight. Bale moved the arm—the man screamed from the bottom of hell, and a knot of squirming white bulged from under his armpit.