perform that service are
imperative!'

"He spoke with warmth and decision. I replied, 'That such are your
wishes cannot be doubted. But is this the most effectual mode of
carrying them into execution? In the progress of the war there will be
ample opportunity to give your talents and your life, should it be so
ordered, to the sacred cause to which we are pledged. You can bestow
upon your country the richest benefits, and win for yourself the highest
honours. Your exertions for her interests will be daily felt, while, by
one fatal act, you crush forever the power and opportunity Heaven offers
for her glory and your happiness.'

"I urged him for the love of country, for the love of kindred, to
abandon an enterprise which would only end in the sacrifice of the
dearest interests of both. He paused--then affectionately taking my
hand, he said, 'I will reflect, and do nothing but what duty demands.'
He was absent from the army, and I feared he had gone to the British
lines to execute his fatal purpose."

Just how soon after this conversation Captain Hale left camp on his
perilous mission, cannot now be determined. We only know that it must
have been early in September, during the first week or ten days. He
proceeded with Sergeant Hempstead by the safest route, and reached
Norwalk before finding a place to cross Long Island Sound.

Sergeant Hempstead alone has furnished the few details of Captain Hale's
final preparations. He had decided to assume civilian's dress, probably
that of an educated man seeking employment as tutor among the Americans
still living in New York. Hempstead says he was dressed in a brown suit
of citizen's clothes, with a round, broad-brimmed hat. On parting he
gave Hempstead his private papers and letters, and his silver
shoebuckles, to take care of for him.

It is, we think, not an undue inference that the letters and private
papers he left in Hempstead's care were all to be sent to his family.
These doubtless included personal letters to them, for no man such as we
know Nathan Hale to have been would have faced a journey from which he
might never return without some words of explanation, and possible
farewell, to those he loved at home. There is one fact that all who
believe in the sanctity of personal confidences and possible farewells
will be glad to remember,--that not one private word from Nathan Hale to
Alice Adams Ripley, or from her to him, has ever been exploited to
satisfy the curiosity