give you
the word to speak to my brother to-day!"

Blair rubbed his hands and a look of triumph overspread his rugged face.

"He has, Madame. I have a message for him!"

"A message?"

"From the highest authority!"

"May I be present at your conference?" she pleaded eagerly.

"By all means, Madame. Stay and hear my announcement. He cannot refuse
me."

Lee sought at once to put Blair at ease on his mission.

"From my sister's remark a moment ago, I may guess the purpose of your
coming, Mr. Blair?"

His guest surveyed Lee with an expression of deep pleasure in the
unfolding of his message.

"In part, yes, you may have guessed my purpose. But I have something to
say that even your keen mind has not surmised--"

"I am honored, sir, in your call and I shall be glad to hear you."

Blair drew himself erect as if on military duty.

"Colonel Lee, I have come after a conference with President Lincoln, to
ask you to throw the power of your great name into this fight now to put
an end to chaos--"

"You have come from the President?"

"Unofficially--"

"Oh--"

"But with his full knowledge and consent."

"And what is his suggestion?"

Blair hesitated.

"He cannot make it until he first knows that you will accept his offer."

"His offer?"

Blair waited until the thought had been fully grasped and then uttered
each word with solemn emphasis.

"His offer, sir, of the supreme command of the armies of the Union--"

A cry of joy and pride came resistlessly from the sister's lips.

"Oh, Robert--Robert!"

Lee was surprised and deeply moved. He rose from his seat, walked to the
window, looked out, flushed and slowly said:

"You--you--cannot mean this--?"

Blair hastened to assure him.

"I am straight from the White House. General Scott has eagerly endorsed
your name."

"But I cannot realize this to me--from Abraham Lincoln?"

"From Abraham Lincoln, whose simple common sense is the greatest
asset to-day which the Union possesses. His position is one of frank
conciliation toward the South."

"Yet he said once that this Republic cannot endure half slave and half
free and the South interpreted that to mean--war--"

"Exactly. Crowds do not reason. They refuse to think. They refuse,
therefore, to hear his explanation of those words. He hates Slavery
as you hate Slavery. He knows, as you know, that it is doomed by the
process of time. To make this so clear that he who runs may read, he
wrote in his inaug