Jud reveals to Lavinia that everyone on the road is indeed dead, including her. She passed from the typhoid fever from which she thought she had recovered and he from a Yankee bullet. The Sergeant, understanding Jud's words, sighs and begins to walk down the road, but Lavinia refuses to believe him. Jud tells her that there is nothing left for him in that house. Insisting that she is alive, Lavinia pleads with her husband to stay. Jud refuses and continues his journey, disregarding his wife's pleas but reassuring her that he will wait for her at the end of the road.