It fills me with joy.... Tell
me I could have kept you--tell me."

"Yes. I've no power to resist you. But I might have hated--"

"Hush!... It's all might have.... I've risen above myself."

"Lenore, you distress me. A little while ago you bewildered me with your
sweetness and love.... Now--you look like an angel or a goddess.... Oh,
to have your face like this--always with me! Yet it distresses me--so
terrible in purpose. What are you about to tell me? I see something--"

"Listen," she broke in. "I meant to make you weak. I implore you now to
be strong. You must go to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you
to go with a changed spirit.... You were about to do a terrible thing.
You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by violence. You
despised the German blood and you meant to spill it. Like a wild man you
would have rushed to fight, to stab and beat, to murder--and you would
have left your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.... Oh, I know it!...
Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to go to war.... War is a
terrible business, but men don't wage it for motives such as yours. We
Americans all have different strains of blood--English--French--German.
One is as good as another. You are obsessed--you are out of your head on
this German question. You must kill that idea--kill it with one
bayonet-thrust of sense.... You must go to war as my soldier--with my
ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged
word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy
freedom.... You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean--an American
soldier!... You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for
war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man--my choice, sir, of
all the men in the world!... I am sending you. I am giving you up....
Oh, my darling--you will never know how hard it is!... But go! Your life
has been sad. You have lost so much. I feel in my woman's heart what
will be--if only you'll change--if you see God in this as I see. Promise
me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself what I believe. Trust
me--promise me... Then--oh, I know God will send you back to me!"

He fell upon his knees before her to bury his face in her lap. His whole
frame shook. His hands plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him.

"Lenore," he whispered, brokenly, "I can't see God in this--for me!... I
can't promise!"

CHAPTER XXI

Thirty masked men sat around a lon