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“Tell her I was ready, and the only bitterness was leaving her. I shall remember, and wait until she comes. My little Mary! O, be kind to her, for my sake, when you tell her this.”

“I will, Murry, as God hears me. I will be a sister to her while I live.”

As Mercy spoke, with fervent voice, he laid the hand that had ministered to him so faithfully against his cheek, and lay silent, as if content.

“What else? let me do something more. Is there no other friend to be comforted?”

“No; she is all I have in the world. I hoped to make her so happy, to be so much to her, for she’s a lonely little thing; but God says ‘No,’ and I submit.”

A long pause, as he lay breathing heavily, with eyes that were dimming fast fixed on the gentle face beside him.

“Give Jim my clothes, send Mary a bit of my hair, and may I give you this? it’s a poor thing, but all I have to leave you, best and kindest of women.”

He tried to draw off a slender ring, but the strength had gone out of his wasted fingers, and she helped him, thanking him with the first tears he had seen her shed. He seemed satisfied, but suddenly turned his eyes on Clay, who lay as if asleep. A sigh broke from Murry, and Mercy caught the words.

“How could he do it, and I so helpless!”

“Do you know him?” she whispered, eagerly, as she remembered Clay’s own words.

“I knew he was the man who shot me, when he came. I forgive him; but I wish he had spared me, for Mary’s sake,” he answered sorrowfully, not angrily.

“Do you really pardon him?” cried Mercy, wondering, yet touched by the words.

“I do. He will be sorry one day, perhaps; at any rate, he did what he thought his duty; and war makes brutes of us all sometimes, I fear. I’d like to say good-by; but he’s asleep after a weary day, so don’t wake him. Tell him I’m glad he is to live, and that I forgive him heartily.”

Although uttered between long pauses, these words seemed to have exhausted Murry, and he spoke no more till Dr. Fitz Hugh came. To him he feebly returned thanks, and whispered his farewell, then sank into a stupor, during which life ebbed fast. Both nurse and doctor forgot Clay as they hung over Murry, and neither saw the strange intentness of his face, the half awe-struck, half remorseful look he bent upon the dying man.

As the sun rose, sending its ruddy beams across the silent ward, Murry looked up and smiled, for the bright ray fell athwart the two coats hanging on the wall beside him. Some passer-by had brushed one sleeve of the blue coat across the gray, as if the inanimate things were shaking hands.

“It should be so–love our enemies; we should be brothers,” he murmured faintly; and, with the last impulse of a noble nature, stretched his hand toward the man who had murdered him.

But Clay shrunk back, and covered his face without a word. When he ventured to look up, Murry was no longer there. A pale, peaceful figure lay on the narrow bed, and Mercy was smoothing the brown locks as she cut a curl for Mary and herself. Clay could not take his eyes away; as if fascinated by its serenity, he watched the dead face with gloomy eyes, till Mercy, having done her part, stooped and kissed the cold lips tenderly as she left him to his sleep. Then, as if afraid to be alone with the dead, he bid Jim put the screen between the beds, and bring him a book. His order was obeyed; but he never turned his pages, and lay, with muffled head, trying to shut out little Watts’ sobs, as the wounded drummer boy mourned for Murry.

Death in an hospital makes no stir, and in an hour no trace of the departed remained but the coat upon the wall, for Jim would not take it down, though it was his now. The empty bed stood freshly made, the clean cup and worn Bible lay ready for other hands, and the card at the bed’s head hung blank for a new-comer’s name. In the hurry of this event, Clay’s attempted crime was forgotten for a time. But that evening Dr. Fitz Hugh told Mercy that her suspicions were correct, for the water was poisoned.