The touch of these cold fingers on hers grew colder.
Then their feeble clasp had gone, but the bird sang on.
She rose unsteadily, drew the plaid over his face, and left the tent. She did not seem to realise the presence of others.
Andrew ran after her.
"Marrion, Marrion, whaur are ye gaun? Ye poor, poor thing!" he whispered hoarsely in the extremity of his bewildered grief. "Bide a wee, and I'll see ye haim."
"I am going to walk home," she said dully. "It will do me good. I must--I must do something--and I must be alone."
So she walked over the meadows, crushing the drifts of purple colchicum under her feet. What had he called the flower of death? Ah, the iris! That would come in the spring. It would flower on his grave perhaps. And all the time she felt his cold hand on hers, she heard the bird's full song. How he would have loved to hear it! Perhaps he had.
It was dark ere she reached the vine pergola where they had been so happy, and she started when a tall officer in Highland costume came towards her. Was it all a bad dream? Was she waking to find him still her own? But he was only the bearer of a kindly message from the regiment to say that the colonel was to be buried at dawn, and that if Mrs. Marsden----
"Who told you I was Mrs. Marsden?" she asked sharply. "Andrew Fraser?"
The officer bowed and went on.