He raised himself on one elbow, watching Celia’s shocked white face for a moment or two, then wearily turned toward the window and sank back on his pillows.

In the still twilight, far away through the steady fusillade from the outposts, he heard the dull boom-booming of cannon, and the heavy shocks of the great guns aboard the Union gun-boats.  But it sounded very far off; a mocking-bird sang close under his window; the last rosy bar faded from the fleecy cloud bank in the east.  Night came abruptly—­the swift Southern darkness quickly emblazoned with stars; and the whip-poor-wills began their ghostly calling; and the spectres of the mist crept stealthily inland.

“Celia?”

Her soft voice answered from the darkness near him.

He said:  “I knew this was her room before you told me.  I have seen her several times.”

“Good God, Phil!” she faltered, “what are you saying?”

“I don’t know. . . .  I saw her the night I came here.”

After a long silence Celia rose and lighted a candle.  Holding it a little above her pallid face she glided to his bedside and looked down at him.  After a moment, bending, she touched his face with her palm; then her cool finger-tips brushed the quiet pulse at his wrist.

“Have I any fever?”

“No, Phil.”

“I thought not. . . .  I saw mother’s face a few moments ago in that mirror behind you.”

Celia sank down on the bed’s edge, the candle trembling in her hand.  Then, slowly, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder, moving cautiously, until her fascinated eyes found the glass behind her.  The mirror hung there reflecting the flowered wall opposite; a corner of the bed; nothing else.

He said in an even voice;

“From the first hour that you brought me into this room, she has been here.  I knew it instantly. . . .  The first day she was behind those curtains—­was there a long while.  I knew she was there; I watched the curtains, expecting her to step out.  I waited all day, not understanding that I—­that it was better that I should speak.  I fell asleep about dusk.  She came out then and sat where you are sitting.”

“It was a dream, Phil.  It was fever.  Try to realise what you are saying!”

“I do.  The next evening I lay watching; and I saw a figure reflected in the mirror.  It was not yet dusk.  Celia, in the sunset light I saw her standing by the curtains.  But it was star-light before she came to the bed and looked down at me.

“I said very quietly:  ‘Mother dear!’ Then she spoke to me; and I knew she was speaking, but I could not hear her voice. . . .  It was that way while she stood beside me—­I could not hear her, Celia.  I could not hear what she was saying.  It was no spirit I saw—­no phantom from the dead there by my bed, no ghost—­no restless wraith, grave-driven through the night.  I believe she is living.  She knows I believe it. . . .  As you sat here, a moment ago, reading to me, I saw her reflected for a moment in the mirror behind you, passing into the room beyond.  Her hair is perfectly white, Celia—­or,” he said vaguely to himself, “was it something she wore?—­like the bandeaux of the Sisters of Charity——­”