"At once."

"What shall you do?"

"I--I don't know." His legs began to tremble, and he sank heavily on a
chair. "I--I am too sick to join the army, mother," he went on, half
pleadingly.

Now Mrs. Ruthven did not care to have him leave her, yet she was but
human, and it filled her with disgust to have her only offspring such a
coward.

"You weren't very sick this morning."

"I know that. But the sun has affected my head. I feel very faint."

"If you don't join the ranks, all of our neighbors will put you down as
a coward, St. John."

"They can't want a sick man along," he whined.

"They will say you are shamming."

"But I am not shamming. I feel bad enough to take to my bed this
minute."

"Then you had better do it," answered Mrs. Ruthven, with, however, but
little sympathy in her voice.

"I will go to bed at once."

"You must not forget that your cousin, Harry Powell, is in the army."

"Yes, on the Yankee side."

"Still he is brave enough to go. Marion may think a good deal of him on
that account."

"Well, I would go, for Marion's sake, if I felt at all well," groaned
St. John. "But I am in for a regular spell of sickness, I feel certain
of it."

"Then go to bed."

"Write Colonel Raymond a note stating that I am in bed, and tell him I
would join the ranks if I possibly could," groaned St. John, and then
dragged himself upstairs and retired. Here he called for a negro servant
and had a man go for a doctor.

Much disgusted, Mrs. Mary Ruthven penned the note, and sent it to town,
shielding her son's true character as much as possible.

For the remainder of the day St. John stayed in bed, and whenever a
servant came into his room he would groan dismally.

When the doctor arrived he was alarmed, until he made an examination.

"He is shamming," thought the family physician. But as the Ruthvens were
among his best customers, he said nothing on this point. He left St.
John some soothing medicine and a tonic, and said he would call again
the next day.

Instead of using the medicine, the young spendthrift threw it out of the
window.

"Don't catch me swallowing that stuff," he chuckled to himself. "I am
not altogether such a fool."

Several days passed, and nothing of importance happened to disturb those
at either of the Ruthven plantations.

But a surprise was in store for Jack and those with whom he lived.

One of the wounded soldiers stopping at Mrs. Alice Ruthven's home was
named George Wal