Celia told him this on the third day, late in the afternoon—­so late that the westering sun was already touching the crests of the oak woods, and all the thickets had turned softly purple like the bloom on a plum; the mounting scent of phlox from the garden was growing sweeter, and the bats fluttered and dipped and soared in the calm evening sky.

She had been talking of his mother when she was Constance Paige and wore a fillet over her dark ringlets and rode to hounds at ten with the hardest riders in all Prince Clarence County.

“And this was her own room, Phil; nothing in it has been moved, nothing changed; this is the same bird and garland chintz, matching the same wall-paper; this is the same old baid with its fo’ ca’ved columns and its faded canopy, the same gilt mirror where she looked and saw reflected there the loveliest face in all the valley. . . .  A child’s face, Phil—­even a child’s face when she drew aside her bridal veil to look. . . .  Ah—­God—­” She sighed, looking down at her clasped hands, “if youth but knew—­if youth but knew!”

He lay silent, the interminable rattle of picket firing in his ears, his face turned toward the window.  Through it he could see green grass, a magnolia in bloom, and a long flawless spray of Cherokee roses pendant from the gallery.

Celia sighed, waited for him to speak, sighed again, and picked up the Baltimore newspaper to resume her reading if he desired.

Searching the columns listlessly, she scanned the headings, glanced over the letter press in silence, then turned the crumpled page.  Presently she frowned.

“Listen to this, Philip; they say that there is yellow fever among the Yankee troops in Louisiana.  It would be like them to bring that horror into the Ca’linas and Virginia——­”

He turned his head suddenly, partly rose from where he lay; and she caught her breath and bent swiftly over him, placing one hand on his arm and gently forcing him down upon the-pillow again.

“Fo’give me, dear,” she faltered.  “I forgot what I was reading——­”

He said, thoughtfully:  “Did you ever hear exactly how my mother died, Celia? . . .  But I know you never did. . . .  And I think I had better tell you.”

“She died in the fever camp at Silver Bayou, when you were a little lad,” whispered Celia.

“No.”

“Philip!  What are you saying?”

“You don’t know how my mother died,” he said quietly.

“Phil, we had the papers—­and the Governor of Louisiana wrote us himse’f——­”

“I know what he wrote and what the papers published was not true.  I’ll tell you how she died.  When I was old enough to take care of myself I went to Silver Bayou. . . .  Many people in that town had died; some still survived.  I found the parish records.  I found one of the camp doctors who remembered that accursed year of plague—­an old man, withered, indifferent, sleeping his days away on the rotting gallery of his tumble-down house. He knew. . . .  And I found some of the militia still surviving; and one among them retained a confused memory of my mother—­among the horrors of that poisonous year——­”