blackening.
Suddenly Cameron flung the blanket from him and sprang to his feet with a
single motion, a tall soldier with a white flame of wrath in his face,
his eyes flashing with fire. They called him in friendly derision the
"Silent Corporal" because he kept so much to himself, but now he blazed
forth at them:

"You lie, Kelly! You know you do! The whole lot of you are liars! You
know that rot you've been talking isn't true. You know that it's to cover
up your own vile deeds and to excuse your own lustful passions that you
talk this way and try to persuade your hearts and consciences that you
are no worse than the girls you have dishonored! But it isn't so and you
know it! There _are_ good women! There always have been and there always
will be! You, every one of you, know at least one. You are dishonoring
your mothers and your sisters when you talk that way. You are worse than
the beasts you are going out to fight. That's the rotten stuff they are
teaching. They call it Kultur! You'll never win out against them if you
go in that spirit, for it's their spirit and nothing more. You've got to
go clean! If there's a God in heaven He's in this war, and it's got to be
a clean war! And you've got to begin by thinking differently of women or
you're just as bad as the Huns!"

With that he seized his poncho, stamped out into the storm, and tramped
for two hours with a driving sleet in his face, his thoughts a fury of
holy anger against unholy things, and back of it all the feeling that he
was the knight of true womanhood. She had sent him forth and no man in
his presence should defile the thought of her. It was during that tramp
that he had made up his mind to ally himself with God's people. Whether
it would do any good in the long run in his search for God or not,
whether he even was sure he believed in God or not, he would do that much
if he were permitted.

His interview with the minister had not made things much plainer. He had
been told that he would grow into things. That the church was the
shepherd-fold of the soul, that he would be nurtured and taught, that by
and by these doubts and fears would not trouble him. He did not quite see
it, how he was to be nurtured on the distant battlefield of France, but
it was a mystical thing, anyway, and he accepted the statement and let it
go at that. One thing that stuck in his heart and troubled him deeply was
the way the minister talked to him about love and fellowship with his