t to its damage. I should go back stronger than I had
come. And then I thought of my lady. You see--how can I tell you? There
were certain peculiarities of our relationship--as things are I need not
tell about that--which would render her presence with me impossible. I
should have had to leave her; indeed, I should have had to renounce her
clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I could do in the north. And
the man knew _that_, even as he talked to her and me, knew it as well
as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then
abandonment. At the touch of that thought my dream of a return was
shattered. I turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his eloquence
was gaining ground with me.

"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with
them. Do you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?'

"'No,' he said; 'but----'

"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have
ceased to be anything but a private man.'

"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these
reckless challenges, these wild aggressions----'

"I stood up.

"'No,' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I
weighed them--and I have come away."

"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me
to where the lady sat regarding us.

"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned slowly
from me and walked away.

"I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts his appeal had set going.

"I heard my lady's voice.

"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'

"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her
sweet face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.

"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I said.
'If they distrust Gresham they must settle with him themselves.'

"She looked at me doubtfully.

"'But war--' she said.

"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself and
me, the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and completely,
must drive us apart for ever.

"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief
or that.

"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There
will be no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past.
Trust me to know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me,
dearest, and no one has a right u