.

And now you know how my mother died." 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.

.