Reverently Mark bent his face to hers, and the pine boughs overhead heard, instead of mourning notes, a prayer of praise, as the reunited wife and husband fervently thanked God, who had brought them together again.
Not until nearly half an hour was gone, and Helen had begun to realize that the arm which held her so tightly was genuine flesh and blood, and not a mere delusion, did she look up into the face, glowing with so much of happiness and love. Upon the forehead, and just beneath the hair, there was a savage scar, and the flesh about it was red and angry still, showing how sore and painful it must have been, and making Helen shudder as she touched it with her lips, and said: "Poor, darling Mark! that's where the cruel ball entered; but where is the other scar--the one made by the man who went to you in the fields, and who also fired, they said. I have tried so hard to hate him for firing at a fallen foe."
"Rather, pray for him, darling. Bless him as the savior of your husband's life, the noble fellow but for whom I should not have been here now, for he was a Unionist, as true to the old flag as Abraham himself," Mark Ray replied; and then, as Helen looked wonderingly at him, he laid her head in an easier position upon his shoulder, and told her a story so strange in its details that but for the frequent occurrence of similar incidents it would be pronounced wholly unreal and false.
Of what he suffered in the Southern prisons he did not speak, either then or ever after, but began with the day when, with a courage born of desperation, he jumped from the moving train, and was shot down by the guard. Partially stunned, he still, retained sense enough to know when a tall form bent over him, and to hear the rough but kindly voice which said: "Play 'possum, Yank. Make b'lieve you're dead, and throw them hellhounds off the scent."
This was the last he knew for many weeks, and when again he awoke to consciousness he found himself on the upper floor of a dilapidated hut, which stood in the center of a little wood, his bed a pile of straw, over which was spread a clean patchwork quilt, while seated at his side, and watching him intently, was the same man who had bent over him in the field, and shouted to the rebels that he was dead.
"I shall never forget my sensations then," Mark said, "for, with the exception of this present hour, when I hold you, my darling, in my arms, and know the danger is over, I never experienced a moment of greater happiness and rest than when, up in that squalid garret, where the rafters, festooned with cobwebs and dust, could be touched by stretching out my hand, and where the sunlight only found an entrance through an aperture in the roof, which admitted the rain as well, I came back to life again, the pain in my head all gone, and nothing left save a delicious feeling of languor, which prompted me to lie quietly for several minutes, examining my surroundings, and speculating upon the chance which brought me there. That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the man at my side said to me, cheerily: 'Well, old chap, you've come through it like a major, though I was mighty dubious a spell about that pesky ball. But old Aunt Bab and me fished it out, and since then you've begun to mend.'