ge agitation was increasing. Colonel Fortescue took up
a newspaper and glanced at it, to give Broussard a chance to recover
himself. In a minute or two Broussard managed to speak calmly.

"You remember, sir," he said, "that I asked you to take my word there was
nothing wrong in my association with Lawrence and his wife."

"I remember quite well," answered Colonel Fortescue, "I never doubted
your word."

"Thank you," said Broussard. Once more he wiped the cold drops from his
forehead, and continued in a low voice, tremulous and often broken.

"I told you that Lawrence and I had been playmates in our boyhood,
although he is much older than I. Sir, Lawrence is my half-brother--the
son of my mother. She was an angel on earth, and she is now an angel in
Heaven. If heavenly spirits can suffer, my mother suffers this day that
her son should have deserted from his duty."

Never had Colonel Fortescue felt greater pity for a man than for
Broussard then. The shame of confessing that his mother's son had
forfeited his honor was like death itself to Broussard.

"But there is joy in Heaven over a penitent sinner," said Colonel
Fortescue, who believed in God, and was neither afraid nor ashamed to say
so.

Broussard bowed his head.

"My mother--God bless her--was the very spirit of honor. She was the
daughter of an officer. When I was a little chap and said I wanted to be
a soldier, she would tell me the stories of the Spartan mothers, who hade
their sons return with their shields or on them. Thank God, she was
taken away before dishonor fell upon her eldest son. She thought him
dead, and so did I, until last January, when Lawrence told me, the night
before I left this post, who he really was. When I met him in San
Francisco I told him I would come with him here to give himself up, that
I would acknowledge him for my half-brother, that I would sit by him at
his court-martial and go to the door of the military prison with him. He
begged me to keep our relationship secret for the sake of our mother's
memory."

Colonel Fortescue held out his hand, and grasped that of Broussard.

"You speak like a man," he said, "but Lawrence is right in keeping the
relationship a secret, and it shows that he understands the height from
which he has fallen. Does his wife know of the relationship?"

"Yes, sir," Broussard replied. "I thought it best to tell her. But she
kept the secret well. My brother's wife is worthy of my moth