"What is it, hey? Life and death, Blecker?"
"More, to me," with a smile. "Make your men remove that man Gurney into the lower ward. Don't stop to question, Colonel: I'll explain afterwards. I'm surgeon of this post."
"You're crotchety as a woman, Paul," laughed the other, as he gave the order.
"What d' ye mean to do, old fellow, with this wound of yours? Go under for it, as you said at first?"
"This morning I would have told you yes. I don't know now. I can't afford to leave the world just yet. I'll fight death to the last breath." Watching the removal of the prisoner as he spoke; when the door closed on him, letting his head fall on the pillow with a sigh of relief. "Sheppard, there was another matter I wished to see you about. Your mother came to see me yesterday."
"Yes; was the soup good she sent this morning? We're famous for our broths on the farm, but old Nance isn't here, and"----
"Very good;--but there was another favor I wished to ask."
"Well?"--staring into the white-washed wall to avoid seeing how red poor crotchety Blecker's face grew.
"By the way, Paul, my mother desired me to bring that young lady you told her of home with me. She means to adopt her for the present, I believe."
"It was that I meant to ask of her,--you knew?"
"Yes, I knew. Bah, man, don't wring my fingers off. If the girl's good and pure enough to do this thing, my mother's the woman to appreciate it. She knows true blood in horses or men, mother. Not a better eye for mules in Kentucky than that little woman's. A Shelby, you know? Stock-raisers. By George, here she comes, with her charge in tow already!"
Blecker bit his parched lips: among the footsteps coming up the long hall, he heard only one, quick and light; it seemed to strike on his very brain, glancing to the yellow-panelled door, behind which the prisoner lay. She thought that man dead. She always should think him dead. She should be his wife before God; if He had any punishment for that crime, he took it on his own soul,--now. And so turned with a smile to meet her.
"Don't mind Paul's face, if it is skin and bone," said the Colonel, hastily interposing his squat figure between it and the light. "Needs shaving, that's all. He'll be round in no time at all, with a bit of nursing; 's got no notion of dying."