gently.

She slipped her arms about his neck.

"No, I shall not blame you. I understand now. I only grieve--"

Her voice broke. She struggled to control herself.

"How handsome you are in this solemn hour, my glorious,
soldier-brother--" Again her voice failed.

"The pity and horror of it all! My husband and my son will fight
you--and--I--shall--pray--for--their--success--oh--how can God permit
it!--Goodbye, Robert!"

Her arms tightened and his responded. His hand touched her hair and he
said slowly:

"If dark hours come to us, my sister, we are children again roaming the
fields hand in hand. We'll just remember that."

She kissed him tenderly.

"And success or failure, dear Annie," he continued, "shall be in God's
hands--not ours. I go to lead a forlorn hope perhaps. But I must share
the miseries of my people."

He slipped from her arms and silently embraced his daughter, and again
her mother.

"Say goodbye to the other children for me when you see them, dear."

Blair took his extended hand.

"I know what you feel, Colonel Lee," he said solemnly. "I'm only sorry I
could not hold you."

"Thank you, my friend. My people believe, and I believe that we have
rights to defend. And we must do our best--even if we perish."

He strode quickly to the door, and paused. A sudden pain caught his
heart as he crossed its threshold for the last time. He looked back,
lifted his head as in prayer and passed out.

He mounted his horse and rode swiftly through the beautiful spring
morning toward Richmond--and Immortality. The women stood weeping. The
President's messenger watched in sorrow.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

When John Brown cunningly surveyed the lines around those houses in
Kansas, observed the fastenings of their doors, marked the strength of
the shutters, learned the names of their dogs, crept under the cover
of darkness on his prey as a wild beast creeps through the jungle and
hacked his innocent victims to pieces, we know that he was a criminal
paranoiac pursuing a fixed idea under the delusion that God had sent
him.

Yet on the eighteenth of July, 1861, Colonel Fletcher Webster's
regiment, the Twelfth Massachusetts, marched through the streets of
Boston singing a song of glory to John Brown which one of its members
composed. They were also marching Southward to kill. The only difference
was they had a Commission.

War had been declared.

Why did the war crowd on the streets and in the ranks burst