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 ing you true. Here, if you don’t believe me, I’ll convince you,” and he shifted the hand he held until the finger of it could touch the bandages across his breast. “You feel that?” he asked. “You’re not touching the body of a man. Those are bandages covering the body of a man, and under those bandages there’s an open wound that will never heal. I am telling you true. There’s no one on earth who is closely related to me. There’s no one to care what I do with my name or with the few remaining months of my life. The nearest I can come to a family is a mother and a father, and they are both in Heaven, and if either of them were here this minute, they would say: ‘Cover the shame baby with your name, Jamie!’”

“Jamie!” said the voice beside him a little breathlessly. “There isn’t a sweeter name in all the world that could be given to a little child, if it happened to be a boy. But it’s too big a sacrifice! It’s a thing that shouldn’t be asked of any man, no matter how free, no matter how willing!”

“Well,” said Jamie, “I’m telling you I am free. I’ll prove it by citing to you records you can look up. I’m part of the aftermath of war. You can find my name if you look in the proper place for it. I’ll tell you right here that it’s James Lewis MacFarlane, and from the time I can remember, my mother and father made it Jamie. I ran away from a hospital a few days ago because my case was hopeless and I wouldn’t go where they wanted to send me. You know Camp Kearney? You know the village of tents that means the White Plague? I hadn’t it and I wouldn’t go there, so I ran away. I got as far as the apiary