ay, dear. I'm
not a child. I don't need a chaperone."

"But you may need a friend----"

"He does wield the power of kings--doesn't he?"

"With the tenderness and love of a father, yes."

"And yet I've wondered," he went on in a curious cold tone, "why he
hasn't been killed--when the death of one man would end this carnival of
murder----"

"John, how can you say such things?" Betty gasped.

"It's true, dear," he answered calmly. "This man's will alone has
prevented peace and prevents it now. The soldiers on both sides joke
with one another across the picket lines. They get together and play
cards at night. Before the battle begins, our boys call out:

"'Get into your holes, now, Johnnie, we've got to shoot.'

"Left to themselves, the soldiers would end this war in thirty minutes.
It's the one man at the top who won't let them. It's hellish--it's
hellish----"

"And you would justify an assassin?" Betty asked breathlessly.

"Who is an assassin, dear?" he demanded tensely. "The man who wields a
knife or the tyrant who calls the fanatic into being? Brutus or Caesar,
William Tell or Gessler? Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God----"

"John, John--how can you say such things--you don't believe in
murder----"

"No!" he breathed fiercely. "I don't now. I used to until I had a
revelation----"

He stopped short as if strangled.

"Revelation--what do you mean?" Betty whispered, watching his every
movement, with growing terror.

He looked at her with eyes glittering.

"I didn't want to tell you this," he began slowly. "I meant to keep the
black thing hidden in my own soul. But you'll understand better if I
speak. I killed Ned Vaughan with my own hands----"

"You're mad----" Betty shivered.

"I wish I were--no--I was never sane before that flash of red from hell
showed me the truth--showed me what I was doing. We fought in the
darkness of a night attack, hand to hand, like two maddened beasts. He
ran me through with his sword and I sent the last ball left in my
revolver crashing through his breast. In the glare of that shot I saw
his face--the face of my brother! I caught him in my arms as he fell and
held him while the life blood ebbed away through the hole I had torn
near his heart. And then I saw what I'd been doing, saw it all as it
is--war--brother murdering his brother--the shout and the tumult, the
drums and bugles, the daring and heroism of it all, just that and
nothing more--brother cutting his b