“Tim!” she cried. “Speak to me, Tim!”
Getting no response, she got to her feet and turned to the surgeon. “You don’t mean he’s dead?” And the last word died away in a wail.
“I’m afraid there is no hope for him,” the doctor replied.
“He’s dead! Tim’s dead! Oh, my God!” she said, and then she dropped into a chair and threw her apron over her head and rocked to and fro, sobbing and mourning.
The young Southerner was not yet hardened to such sights, and his heart was sore with sympathy. Yet it seemed to him that the woman’s emotion was so violent that it would not last long.
While he was getting ready to have the body removed from the stretcher to a bed in one of the other rooms, Mrs. McEcchran unexpectedly pulled the apron from her head.
“Can I look at him?” she asked, as she slipped to the side of the body and stealthily lifted a corner of the covering to peek in. Suddenly she pulled it back abruptly. “Why, this ain’t Tim!” she cried.
“That is not your husband?” asked the doctor, in astonishment. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!” she answered, laughing hysterically. “Of course I’m sure! As if I didn’t know Tim, the father of my children! Why, this ain’t even like him!”
The doctor did not know what to say. “Allow me to congratulate you, madam," he began. “No doubt Mr. McEcchran is still alive and well; no doubt he will return to you. But if this is not your husband, whose husband is he?”