n the narrow road.

"I broke from the bush and fled back along the road to warn our men.
But I did no good. They were beyond all stopping, or hearing even, as
they came yelling around the turn of the road.

"For three minutes there was some of the sharpest fighting I ever saw,
there in the narrow road, before what remained of the Confederates
broke after their horses and made off again. In the very middle of the
fight I noticed two young officers. One was a captain, the other a
lieutenant. I knew them. I knew their story. I believe I was the only
man living who knew that story. Probably _I_ did not know the whole of
that story.

"The lieutenant had maligned the captain. He had said of him the one
thing that a soldier may not say of another. They had fought once. Why
they had been kept in the same command I do not know.

"Now in the very hottest of this fight, without apparently the
slightest warning, the lieutenant threw himself upon the captain,
attacking him viciously with his sword. For a moment they struggled
there, unnoticed in the dust of the conflict. Then the captain,
swinging free, struck the lieutenant's sword from his hand. The latter
drew his pistol and fired, point blank. It missed. By what miracle I
do not know. All this time the captain had held his sword poised to
lunge, within easy striking distance of the other's throat. But he had
made no attempt to thrust. As the pistol missed I saw him stiffen his
arm to strike. Instead he looked a long moment into the lieutenant's
eyes. The latter was screaming what were evidently taunts into his
face. The captain dropped his arm, wheeled, and plunged at the now
breaking line of Confederates.

"I have seen brave men kill bravely. I have seen brave men bravely
refrain from killing. That was the bravest thing I ever saw."

Clifford Stanton sat staring directly in front of him. He gave no sign
of hearing. He was living over for himself that scene on a lonely,
forgotten Virginia road. At last he said as to himself:

"The lieutenant died, a soldier's death, the next day."

"I knew," said the Bishop quietly. "My question is: Are you the same
brave man with a soldier's brave, great heart that you were that
day?"

For a long time Clifford Stanton sat staring directly at something
that was not in the visible world. The question had sprung upon him
out of the dead past. What right had this man, what right had any man
to face him with it?

He wheeled savagely upo