The young officer clapped his cap on his head and ran out, closing the door after him. He saw how it was in a moment.
"Mary," said the sergeant again, after a pause, "don't you believe me?"
"Yes, I believe you," she answered, recovering herself a little and standing up. She looked so slight and pale in her black dress that the big sergeant's heart smote him with pity. "But I don't think we can see each other any more. I ain't forgetful. The only thing for me and him to do is to get back to Jo Daviess County, and for me to tend and nurse him faithful. That's the only kind o' peace I look for now. It'll be hard on you, but men gets over these things better than women."
"Do they?" cried the sergeant roughly and fiercely. "Do they, I say? I'll get over mine by trying to get to the front all the time, and hopin' some rebel bullet'll end everything. For a man who loves another man's wife has got no place on earth. He's in hell already." Her wide and frightened eyes caused the sergeant a pang of shame at his language and his violence. He hesitated a minute, and then said hurriedly: "I ask your pardon. I ask your pardon for all. Good-by," and strode out of the little room.
But at the very door he came near running over the chaplain. The sergeant's strange looks made the chaplain seize him by the arm, and then the tall man saw that the little man too was agitated. His mouth was twitching, and he looked quite shaken and nervous.
"Do you know Kaintuck is dead?" he said. "It was rather sudden at the last. I have just come from his room. He was a good, simple-hearted fellow, full of love for his wife and child. He had very strange eyes. They retained their brightness to the last."
"For God's sake," cried the sergeant, "his wife's in there!"
The door opened and she came out. She had not heard anything, and she was about to pass them both, holding her head down patiently and deprecatingly. Something in the chaplain's face stopped her, though—and she recognized his clerical attire.
"If you please," she said, "I'm—I'm going to my husband."
The chaplain took her hand and led her inside the prison door, while the sergeant walked rapidly out of the jail yard.