“Yes,” she whispered.

“But I wouldn’t if I were you.  If ever any man or woman took the chance of salvation and made the most of it, that person is you!  And I’m going to tell you that I wouldn’t hesitate to marry you if I loved you.”

“W-what!”

He laughed.  “Not one second!  It’s a good partnership for any plan.  Don’t be afraid that you can’t meet men on their own level.  You’re above most of us now; and you’re mounting steadily.  There, that’s my opinion of you—­that you’re a good woman, and a charming one; and Benton is devilish lucky to get you. . . .  Come here, Letty.”

She went to him as though dazed; and he took both her hands in his.

“Don’t you know,” he said, “that I have seen you, day after day, intimately associated with the woman I love?  Can you understand now that I am telling the truth when I say, let the past bury its ghosts; and go on living as you have lived from the moment that your chance came to live nobly.  I know what you have made of yourself.  I know what the chances were against you.  You are a better woman to-day than many who will die untempted.  And you shall not doubt it, Letty.  What a soul is born into is often fine and noble; what a soul makes of itself is beyond all praise.

“Choose your own way; tell him or not; but if you love him, give yourself to him.  Whether or not you tell him, he will want you—­as I would—­as any man would. . . .  Now you must smile at me, Letty.”

She turned toward him a face, pallid, enraptured, transfigured with an inward radiance that left him silent—­graver after that swift glimpse of a soul exalted.

She said slowly:  “You and Ailsa have been God’s own messengers to me. . . .  I shall tell Dr. Benton. . . .  If he still wishes it, I will marry him.  It will be for him to ask—­after he knows all.”

Celia entered, carrying the breakfast on a tray.

“Curt’s Zouaves have stolen ev’y pig, but I found bacon and po’k in the cellar,” she said, smilingly.  “Oh, dear! the flo’ is in such a mess of plaster!  Will you sit on the aidge of the bed, Miss Lynden, and he’p my cousin eat this hot co’n pone?”

So the napkin was spread over the sheets, and pillows tucked behind Berkley; and Celia and Letty fed him, and Letty drank her coffee and thankfully ate her bacon and corn pone, telling them both, between bites, how it had been with her and with Ailsa since the great retreat set in, swamping all hospitals with the sick and wounded of an unbeaten but disheartened army, now doomed to decimation by disease.

“It was dreadful,” she said.  “We could hear the firing for miles and miles, and nobody knew what was happening.  But all the northern papers said it was one great victory after another, and we believed them.  All the regimental bands at the Landing played; and everybody was so excited.  We all expected to hear that our army was in Richmond.”