“The regiment is in better shape, Berkley.  Our remounts have arrived; our wounded are under shelter, and comfortable.  We need rest, and we’re getting it here at Azalea, although they shell us every day.  We ought to be in good trim in a couple of weeks.  You’ll be in the saddle long before that.  Your squadron has become very proud of you; all the men in the regiment have inquired about you.  Private Burgess spends his time off duty under the oak trees out yonder watching your window like a dog. . . .  I—­ah—­may say to you, Berkley, that you—­ah—­have become a credit to the regiment.  Personally—­and as your commanding officer—­I wish you to understand that I am gratified by your conduct.  I have said so in my official reports.”

Berkley’s sunken eyes had reverted to the man beside him.  After a moment his lips moved again in soundless inquiry.

Colonel Arran replied:  “The Zouaves were very badly cut up; Major Lent was wounded by a sabre cut.  He is nearly well now.  Colonel Craig and his son were not hurt.  The Zouaves are in cantonment about a mile to the rear.  Both Colonel Craig and his son have been here to see you—­” he hesitated, rose, stood a moment undecided.

“Mrs. Craig—­the wife of Colonel Craig—­has been here.  Her plantation, Paigecourt, is in this vicinity I believe.  She has requested the medical authorities to send you to her house for your convalescence.  Do you wish to go?”

The hollow-eyed, heavily bandaged face looked up at him from the straw; and Colonel Arran looked down at it, lips aquiver.

“Berkley—­if you go there, I shall not see you again until you return to the regiment.  I—­” suddenly his gray face began to twitch again—­and he set his jaw savagely to control it.

“Good-bye,” he said. . .  “I wish—­some day—­you could try to think less harshly of me.  I am a—­very—­lonely man.”

Berkley closed his eyes, but whether from weakness or sullen resentment the older man could not know.  He stood looking down wistfully at the boy for a moment, then turned and went heavily away with blurred eyes that did not recognise the woman in bonnet and light summer gown who was entering the hospital tent.  As he stood aside to let her pass he heard his name pronounced, in a cold, decisive voice; and, passing his gloved hand across his eyes to clear them, recognised Celia Craig.

“Colonel Arran,” she said coolly, “is it necessa’y fo’ me to request yo’ permission befo’ I am allowed to move Philip Berkley to my own house?”

“No, madam.  The brigade surgeon is in charge.  But I think I can secure for you the necessary authority to do so if you wish.”

She thanked him haughtily, and passed on; and he turned and walked out, impassive, silent, a stoop to his massive shoulders which had already become characteristic.

And that evening Berkley lay at Paigecourt in the chintz-hung chamber where, as a girl, his mother had often slept, dreaming the dreams that haunt young hearts when the jasmine fragrance grows heavier in the stillness and the magnolia’s snowy chalice is offered to the moon, and the thrush sings in the river thickets, and the fire-fly’s lamp drifts through the fairy woods.