you think of me! You need not tell me that you have others to consider,
that you have Miss Carewe to think of. Don't you suppose I know that?
And you need not tell me that you have a duty to Fanchon--"

"Yes," Tom broke in, his tone not quite steady. "Yes, I've thought of
that."

"Well?"

"Have you--did you--" he hesitated, but Crailey understood immediately.

"No; I haven't seen her again."

"But you--"

"Yes--I wrote. I answered the letter."

"As-"

"Yes; I signed your name. I told you that I had just let things go on,"
Crailey answered, with an impatient movement of his hands. "What are you
going to do?"

"I'm going over to see the Governor in the morning. I'll be away two or
three days, I imagine."

"Vanrevel!" exclaimed Crailey hotly, "Will you give me an answer and
not beat about the bush any longer? Or do you mean that you refuse to
answer?"

Tom dropped his cigar upon the brick window-ledge with an abysmal sigh.
"Oh, no, it isn't that," he answered mildly "I've been thinking it all
over for three days in the country, and when I got back tonight I found
that I had come to a decision without knowing it, and that I had come to
it even before I started; my leaving the letter for you proved it. It's
a little like this Mexican war, a mixed-up problem and only one thing
clear. A few schemers have led the country into it to increase the
slave-power and make us forget that we threatened England when we
couldn't carry out the threat. And yet, if you look at it broadly, these
are the smaller things and they do not last. The means by which the
country grows may be wrong, but its growth is right; it is only destiny,
working out through lies and blood, but the end will be good. It is
bound to happen and you can't stop it. I believe the men who make this
war for their own uses will suffer in hell-fire for it; but it is made,
and there's only one thing I can see as the thing for me to do.
They've called me every name on earth--and the same with you, too,
Crailey--because I'm an Abolitionist, but now, whether the country has
sinned or not, a good many thousand men have got to do the bleeding for
her, and I want to be one of them. That's the one thing that is plain to
me."

"Yes," returned Crailey. "You know I'm with you; and I think you're
always right. Yes; we'll all be on the way in a fortnight or so. Do you
mean you won't quarrel with me because of that? Do you mean it would be
a poor time now, when we're al