He could not leave without seeing them once more; he longed for a loving good by; but after that first outburst he almost wished he had not forced the meeting.

He did not speak of his wife, nor did they; but a barrier as of adamant was raised between them, and he felt as though congealing in the breath of an iceberg.

At length he rose to go.
"Father!" he said then, "perhaps you will care to know that I do not return to my old command, but have been commissioned to raise a brigade from the freedmen." Both father and mother knew the awful peril of this service, and both cried, half in suffering, half in anger, "This is your wife's work!" while his father added, with a passionate exclamation, "It is right, quite right, that you should identify yourself with her people.

Well, go your way.

You have made your bed; lie in it." The blood flushed into Surrey's face.