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Reverently Mark bent his face to hers, and the pine boughs overhead heard, instead ofnotes, a prayer of praise, as the reunited wife and husband fervently thanked God, who had brought theone, and Helen had begun to realize that the arenuine flesh and blood, and not awith 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 itHelen 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 ent to you in the fields, and who also fired, they said I have tried so hard to hate hi at a fallen foe"
"Rather, pray for hi 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 hily 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 juuard Partially stunned, he still, retained sense enough to knohen a tall forh 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 ain 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, er is over, I never experienced a reater happiness and rest than when, up in that squalid garret, where the rafters, festooned with cobwebs and dust, could be touched by stretching out h an aperture in the roof, which adain, the pain inof languor, which pro ht me there That I was a prisoner I did not doubt, until the man at my side said to h it like a hty dubious a spell about that pesky ball But old Aunt Bab and un to mend'