"I am glad to be able to help you, and thus help the Southern cause," replied Marion. "But you must not speak too much. It may retard your recovery."
"I will not talk much. But you are so kind I must thank you. What is your name?"
"Marion Ruthven."
Then he told her his own, and said he had a sister at home, in Savannah, Ga., and asked Marion to write a letter for him, which she did willingly.
After that Marion and George Walden became quite intimate, and the soldier told much about himself and the battles through which he had passed.
"Some of them are nothing but nightmares," he said. "I never wish to see the like of them again."
"And yet you saw only the fighting, I presume," said Marion. "Think of what those in the hospital corps must behold."
"I was attached to the hospital corps," returned George Walden. "I have helped to carry in hundreds who were wounded."
"If you were in the hospital service, did you ever meet a doctor named Mackey?" questioned Marion, with increased interest.
At this question the brow of the wounded soldier darkened, and he shifted uneasily upon his couch.