"He might comfort them, perhaps," she whispered as again she followed him. "What awfully sad lives army women have anyway!" she continued as she dashed away the tears that would persist in flowing. "Too bad for her to die. I wonder if it had to be? And that calomel, I hate it. The women say that pints of water have been running from her mouth for days. No wonder she could not eat. The poor thing's a mere skeleton."
"Quite true, darling! But this is something that cannot be helped," said Harold, slipping his arm around Helen's waist as they walked along the now quiet deck. "And my sweet wife must not think she knows too much. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, you know."
"I suppose you are right. Captain Osborne is kind-hearted, and it was very good of him to give up his pretty stateroom to us. But still I cannot help wondering if it was best to give her so much calomel? Perhaps she had to die—so many people have. How hard, too, for women to be separated from their children whenever they go with their husbands on a campaign."
"But it is their husband's fault."
"How so, Harold?"
"Because soldiers usually marry without the consent of their superior officers."
Spite of her tears, Helen smiled as she caught the drift of his words.
"Often, too, the common soldier enlists when drunk," he continued, "and then, out of revenge, or because he has to—I knew an officer who had to—he runs all risks and marries upon the first opportunity."
"Does that often happen?" she asked demurely.
"Yes, over and over again," he replied more gravely. "Sometimes a soldier will be married for years before his captain finds it out. He has nothing to keep his wife on, so he leaves her with her people or to potter for herself till he comes home again. Then in the end, if a man has been steady and seldom in the guardhouse, they give him a chance to take his wife and children with him, particularly when there is little marching to be done; but a tramp of a thousand miles is a different thing."