“‘Impossible to say, madam,’ was the reply. ‘The ball passed through his breast, and although these wounds are almost always mortal, men do now and then recover from them.’
“‘Will this one?’
“‘I cannot tell you, madam, his constitution seems powerful.’
“I saw her turn as he spoke, and fix those glaring eyes on me again. They were enough to burn a hole in you, Surry, and made me feel for some weapon. But there was none—and the scene here terminated—both retired. The next night, however, it was renewed. This time the surgeon felt my pulse, touched my forehead, placed his ear to my breast to listen to the action of the heart, and rising up said, in reply to madam’s earnest glance of inquiry:—
“‘Yes, I am sure he will live. You can give yourself no further anxiety about your cousin, madam.’
“Her cousin! That was not bad, you see. She had gained access, as I ascertained from some words of their conversation, by representing herself as my cousin. I was a member of her family who had ‘gone astray’ and embraced the cause of the rebellion, but was still dear to her! Womanly heart! clinging affection! not even the sin of the prodigal cousin could sever the tender chord of her love! I had wandered from the right path—fed on husks with the Confederate swine; but I was wounded—had come back; should the fatted calf remain unbutchered, and the loving welcome be withheld?
“‘You can give yourself no further uneasiness about your cousin, madam!’
“Such was the assurance of the surgeon, and he turned away to other patients, of whom there were, however, very few in the hospital, and none near me. As he turned his back, madam looked at me. Her face was really diabolical, and I thought at the moment that she was a nightmare—that I dreamed her! Closing my eyes to shut out the vision, I kept them thus shut for some moments. When I reopened them she was gone.
“Well, the surgeon’s predictions did not seem likely to be verified. My fever returned. Throughout the succeeding day I turned and tossed on my couch; as night came, I had some hideous dreams. A storm was raging without, and the rain falling in torrents. The building trembled, the windows rattled—it was a night of nights for some devil’s work; and I remember laughing in my fever, and muttering, ‘Now is the time for delirium, bad dreams, and ugly shapes, to flock around me!’
“I fell into a doze at last, and had, as I thought, a decidedly bad dream—for I felt certain that I was dreaming, and that what I witnessed was the sport of my fancy. What I saw, or seemed to see, was this: the door opened slowly—a head was thrust in, and remained motionless for an instant; then the head moved, a body followed; madam, the lady of the dark eyes, glided stealthily toward my cot. It was enough to make one shudder, Surry, to have seen the stealthy movement of that phantom. I gazed at it through my half-closed eyelids—saw the midnight eyes burning in the white face half covered by a shawl thrown over the head—and, under that covering, the right hand of the phantom grasped something which I could not make out.