The lighted candle fell from Celia’s nerveless fingers and rolled over and over across the floor, trailing a smoking wick.  Berkley’s hand steadied her trembling arm.

“Why are you frightened?” he asked calmly.

“There is nothing dead about what I saw.”

“I c-can’t he’p myse’f,” stammered Celia; “you say such frightful things to me—­you tell me that they happen in my own house—­in her own room—­How can I be calm?  How can I believe such things of—­of Constance Berkley—­of yo’ daid mother——­”

“I don’t know,” he said dully.

The star-light sparkled on the silver candle-stick where it lay on the floor in a little pool of wax.  Quivering all over, Celia stooped to lift, relight it, and set it on the table.  And, over her shoulder, he saw a slim shape enter the doorway.

“Mother dear?” he whispered.

And Celia turned with a cry and stood swaying there in the rays of the candle.

But it was only a Sister of Charity—­a slim, childish figure under the wide white head-dress—­who had halted, startled at Celia’s cry.  She was looking for the Division Medical Director, and the sentries had misinformed her—­and she was very sorry, very deeply distressed to have frightened anybody—­but the case was urgent—­a Sister shot near the picket line on Monday; and authority to send her North was, what she had come to seek.  Because the Sister had lost her mind completely, had gone insane, and no longer knew them, knew nobody, not even herself, nor the hospital, nor the doctors, nor even that she lay on a battle-field.  And she was saying strange and dreadful things about herself and about people nobody had ever heard of. . . .  Could anybody tell her where the Division Medical Director could be found?

It was not yet daybreak when Berkley awoke in his bed to find lights in the room and medical officers passing swiftly hither and thither, the red flames from their candles blowing smokily in the breezy doorways.

The picket firing along the river had not ceased.  At the same instant he felt the concussion of heavy guns shaking his bed.  The lawn outside the drawn curtains resounded with the hurrying clatter of waggons, the noise of pick and spade and crack of hammer and mallet.

He drew himself to a sitting posture.  A regimental surgeon passing through the room glanced at him humorously, saying:  “You’ve got a pretty snug berth here, son.  How does it feel to sleep in a real bed?” And, extinguishing his candle, he went away through the door without waiting for any answer.

Berkley turned toward the window, striving to reach the drawn curtains.  And at length he managed to part them, but it was all dark outside.  Yet the grounds were evidently crowded with waggons and men; he recognised sounds which indicated that tents were being erected, drains and sinks dug; the rattle of planks and boards were significant of preparation for the construction of “shebangs.”