At a Girl's Mercy, or, The Fortunes of War — page 202: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AT A GIRL’S MERCY. 191 what must come and what she must do. But there was scarcely need for him to ask when he saw the pallor touch swiftly all the life from her face and the eyes deepen with the terror of the knowledge. She had said she must know if it should be as kindly cruel as the knife in their work among the soldiers, and now that she found that it was the knife that had been used, she wondered if the men, lying under it when they were brought in to be helped, suffered the pain that she was suffering] She ut- tered no word; she simply laid her hand unsteadily for a moment upon the arm of this strong friend, — and searched his face, bent tenderly above her, for any hope of a lighter sentence than this that she ith brought upon herself when she said she must now. “You poor little woman!”’ said the kindly voice of this friend. ‘‘You poor, brave little woman, Miss Nan. If there is anything that I can do for you, you must tell me at once. I know of nothing I would not do for you to ease for one moment the pain you are under. Tell me what it is, and who ~ knows but I can do something to help you?” He patted softly with his large, gentle hand the tiny hand resting for strength upon his arm, and steadied her weak steps as she faltered for a mo- ment where she stood in the intensity of her suffer- ing, and looked to him for the comfort he could not give her. | ‘‘And is there nothing I can do?’’ she asked _ pres- ently, fighting so hard for the mastery of this new trouble that was laid upon her. ‘‘Isn’t there some- thing I can do for him, something any one would do or could do, no matter how hard it might be? It is for my father I ask, Surgeon McAllister. They can- not call him a coward, but they try to prove him such. There isn’t a cowardly drop of blood in one — of the Courtlands, women or men, and my tather is no spy, and he shall not die for it. There must be | something that I can do, and I will do it—you must | help me do it.”’ He still stroked, as tenderly as she had so many times stroked the hands of others, the soft white Eomicbooks