Perhaps he had loved her once; Anita was all a woman, and at seventeen was learned in the affairs of the heart.
This woman, however, between whom and Broussard some strong link was forged, Anita knew not when, nor how, nor where, was ill and poor and suffering, and Anita's natural inclinations were merciful.

Besides, she had been taught by her father and mother the great lessons of life in kindness and tenderness.

She had seen her father give up a party of pleasure to walk behind the pine coffin of a private soldier, and her mother had robbed her greenhouse of its choicest blossoms to lay a wreath on a soldier's grave.
By instinct, rather than sight, Anita stopped in front of the right door and met the chaplain coming out.
"Glad to see you, Anita," said the chaplain, who was muffled up to his eyes.

"Go in and talk to that poor lady.

We all want to help her, but we find it hard, for she will tell nothing of herself, of her family, or anything, except that she knows Lawrence didn't mean to desert, and will yet report himself." In the plain little bedroom Mrs.Lawrence lay on her bed, the shaded electric light by her bedside showing her thin face, made more pallid by the great braids of lustrous black hair that fell about her.