"Marye-mead. When?"
"This mo'ning, Curt. Phil thinks it was the shells from the gun-boats. It can't be he'ped now; it's gone. So is Edmund Ruffin's. And I wish I knew where that child, Ailsa, is. I'm that frightened and mise'ble, Curt——"
An orderly suddenly appeared at the door; her husband kissed her and hurried away. The outer door swung wide, letting in a brassy clangour of bugles and a roll of drums, which softened when the door closed with a snap.
It opened again abruptly, and a thin, gray-garbed figure came in, hesitated, and Celia turned, staring through her tears:
"Miss Lynden!" she exclaimed. "Is Ailsa here?"
Berkley sat up and leaned forward, looking at her intently from the mass of bandages.
"Letty!" he said, "where is Mrs. Paige?"
Celia had caught the girl's hands in hers, and was searching her thin white face with anxious eyes; and Letty shook her head and looked wonderingly at Berkley.
"Nothing has happened to her," she said. "A Sister of Mercy was wounded in the field hospital near Azalea, and they sent for Mrs. Paige to fill her place temporarily. And," looking from Celia to Berkley, "she is well and unhurt. The fighting is farther west now. Mrs. Paige heard yesterday that the 8th Lancers were encamped near Paigecourt and asked me to find Mr. Berkley—and deliver a letter——"
She smiled, drew from her satchel a letter, and, disengaging her other hand from Celia's, went over to the bed and placed it in Berkley's hands.