I 'VE enlisted,” said Stephen to Benson.

The crowd had dispersed, and silence had fallen on the square. Benson had just entered his office whither Stephen had preceded him. The latter stood before his friend, shame-faced and dogged, with his blood quite cooled, and accused by an awakening sense of duty, which denied by his act, was now protesting against that act.

“I've enlisted,” he repeated, “and I must go home and tell my Aunt Virginia.”

“You've done what?” cried Benson, wheeling on him.

“Don't I make it plain to you, I've said it twice—I've enlisted. I'm going to the war.”

“You'll do nothing of the sort!” said Benson sharply and angrily. “What do you expect me to say to you?”

“I hope you'll be careful what you say,” retorted the young fellow, grinning with a fleeting sense of humour at the situation, “for I'm a soldier now!” He seated himself, and buried his hands deep in his trousers' pockets. “I've thrown over the whole thing, I'll never be a lawyer now, I've chosen a better trade, why don't you congratulate me? They have been patting me on the back and calling me a brave boy, haven't you anything to say?”

“I'll get you out of this in the morning,” declared Benson shortly.

“No, you won't!” said the young man quietly. “This is my affair. You can't get me out of it unless I am willing to be got out, and I won't be willing—my mind's made up; in fact, it was made up the moment I heard the news, only I didn't know it; but I know it now. It's the sort of a chance I've been looking for all along to escape from this. It's been all nonsense my reading law; but this, this is going to be right in my line.”

“Stephen,” said Benson sternly. “Pardon me, but you are talking like a fool. It's nothing to me what you do, I suppose if you get shot I can survive it.”

“So may I!” retorted the boy laughing. “You know there are worse things than that!”

“You'll oblige me by being serious,” said Benson curtly. “I am thinking now of your aunt, you know that.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Stephen, a trifle weary. “I've thought of her, too,” he added softly.

“This will be a serious matter to her, Stephen; and don't you think that enough sorrow has entered into her life already without you doing all you can to add to it?”

“Oh, what's the use of going into that phase of it to-night, I've thought of all that!”

“Then where's your love for her?” demanded Benson.

“It's just as deep and strong as it ever was!” said the boy defiantly. “You know it is; but can't you understand—I have to go—it's in me to go. I pledge you my word, I've made up my mind a score of times not on any account to be led away by my own wishes, but to stick it out here with you, and perhaps one of these days get where you'd give me the small end of your practice. I am quite hopeless, you see; I shall never be able to stand alone in this profession. I'll never fill the toes of your shoes even, you see I'm not to be fooled!”

“You're doing very well,” interrupted Benson quickly. “Of course, you are not exactly cut out for the law—”

“Then what in God's name am I cut out for, have you been able to discover that?”

“A young man may doubt his ability, that is natural enough, but it argues nothing; and in your case it is certainly no reason why you should throw your life, your chances all away!”

“If it were not for my Aunt Virginia I should be perfectly happy to-night; but having to go home and tell her—” Stephen frowned and was silent.

“But you don't have to go home and tell her! That's the very thing you are not to do!”

The boy shook his head. .

“I'm going to get it over with as soon as possible.”

“To-morrow morning—to-night—we'll go and see McKeever, and arrange it with him. Come, be reasonable!” urged Benson.

“No, we won't see him, not for that, anyhow!” retorted the boy.

“Look here, what do you suppose McKeever's after? He hopes to get a commission, and you are helping him along in his ambition!”

“Quite right. He should get a commission, he's gone ahead and done something worth while, why shouldn't he get what he wants? He's the biggest man in town to-night!” cried the boy with frank enthusiasm.

“He's a needy adventurer, Stephen, a man of no character; who has made a failure of his life solely because he was a man of no character.”

“Well, call him what you like; but it isn't helping me to think what I'll tell Aunt Virginia. That's the only thing I've got to worry over!”

“I tell you I can arrange it with McKeever!” insisted Benson. “You will just drop out. You are only committed in so far as you foolishly gave your promise to join his company; you were excited, carried away, and did not stop to think of the consequences. Now you have had time to cool off, and you are seeing in what direction your duty lies.”

“No, I'm not going to appear ridiculous, or as if I hadn't known my own mind!” said the boy doggedly, but secretly he was rather alarmed by the lawyer's opposition, and he feared that he might take steps in the matter which would humiliate him.

“I suppose you had rather appear merely ungrateful,” observed Benson contemptuously.

“Well, that's all in the family. Understand, please, you are not to see McKeever, and you are not to say anything to him if you chance to meet him. Please, now—I don't want you to! It's my affair—”

“He had no business to accept you.” Benson placed his hand on the young man's shoulder, and let it rest there with a kindly pressure. “Don't you be a fool, Stephen!” he urged gently. “All you have to think about is your Aunt Virginia, her feelings, her anxiety, and suffering, if you enlist!”

The boy rounded his shoulder at the touch, and looked up sullenly into his friend's face.

“What's the use of your working yourself into a state of mind over this! I tell you it's settled,” he declared, in a tone that he meant should stop further argument.

“Think of her!”

“I tell you it's settled. Let me stay here with you to-night, and tomorrow you drive out and tell her what I've done, that's where I lose my grip.”

“No, I'll have no part in breaking that news to her; but you stay here to-night, and in the morning we'll hunt up McKeever.”

But Stephen only shook his head.

“I thought you'd help me,” he said, with much dejection of manner.

“Not in this, not in the way you wish me to.”

But Benson was fast losing his temper. The boy's selfishness, and stupid determination, exasperated him to the last degree. He was feeling infinite pity for Virginia, who for years had done nothing but deny herself for this ingrate, who was proving himself so unworthy of her love.

“I didn't think it of you, Stephen,” he said at last, as much in sorrow as in anger. “I looked for better things from you, I did indeed!”

The boy burned to vindicate himself. He felt that all his motives were being misjudged; he wanted Benson to understand just why he had enlisted.

“Look here!” he burst out. “I've fooled my time away here digging into your law books just to please my Aunt Virginia, but it's got to stop; there's no use—no sense in it! I can only be of use to her by being of use to myself in my own way! I can't think with her brains nor hope with her hopes; I've got my own hopes, my own sense of things, and they don't fit with hers—that's all there is to it! Of course, it's going to be a wrench to her, it's going to be a wrench to me; maybe you don't think I love her? I tell you I do! She's been all the mother I have ever had—you know that—and because of her I've never missed anything in my life, but she's got an awfully strong will; she'll make endless sacrifices of herself, but her opinions are like iron, and she's never been able to see what I see! I've told her all along that I was wasting my time here with you; but she's set her heart on my having a profession; nothing I can say moves her, you know that—you know what I say is all so!” he finished in an injured tone.

“This is all beside the question,” said Benson coldly.

“No, it isn't! The wrench has got to come. I've got to have my own head in choosing for myself, and this lucky war comes just in time. It's my one chance to get away and get started on my own hook decently, and I'm going to enlist! Now we won't discuss that side of the case again, please. It's settled.”

“I was merely going to propose that I take your place,” said Benson quietly.

“You take my place—where?” demanded the boy.

“In McKeever's Company.”

“Well, you are funny!” laughed the boy.

“I'm quite in earnest,” answered Benson stiffly.

“No, no! You don't mean that!”

“I'm quite in earnest,” repeated Benson.

“Do you mean you'd enlist just to keep me from enlisting?” inquired Stephen incredulously.

“That's what I said.”

But Stephen waived this aside.

“Oh, you come, too!” he cried. “It will do you a world of good, it's just the sort of thing you need, Mr. Benson!”

Benson frowned.

“I said I'd go in your place.”

“Well, that's nonsense,” objected the boy.

“Very well, then. There is nothing more to be said. Only this, if you don't do what it is your manifest duty to do, what your sense of gratitude should make you do willingly and gladly, I'm done with you! and this war won't last always. You'll be coming back one of these days, it may be within a month or so, and you won't find me the friend I have tried to be, and am still willing to be, if you will only let me serve you!”

At his words Stephen rose slowly from his chair, and took up his hat from the table. His face was white.

“I may even be able to stand that,” he said in a voice he vainly strove to render firm; then not daring to trust himself further he turned quickly to the door, and hurried from the room.

He was deeply hurt, so hurt that he did not realize where he was going until he found himself striding along the deserted country road in the direction of his home.

“And he didn't call me back!” he thought bitterly. “He let me go and never said a word!” Then his mood changed. “I've accepted too many favours from him, if he has begun to keep count of them.” But he could not understand how Benson could have so quickly ended a friendship which he had come to regard as one of the immutable relations of his life.

It was almost midnight when he reached home. There was a faint light burning in the hall, and the library door stood open. His aunt had waited up for him.

“Is that you, Stephen?” she called softly, as he closed and locked the front door.

“Yes,” he answered her, and then as he entered the library, “I'm sorry you waited up for me. If I'd thought you were going to, I'd have gotten home sooner.”

“Surely you didn't walk home, Stephen!” she said. She saw that his shoes were muddy.

“But I did though. I went to see Mr. Benson, and when I left him, every one was gone from out this way, so I had to walk.”

He slipped into a chair at her side.

“Are you very tired, dear?” she asked.

“No, it was nothing, why did you wait up for me? You know I might have stayed at Mr. Benson's all night.”

A shadow crossed his face. The lawyer's words came back to him. He felt that he had been cast off, that that relation had suddenly ceased to be; and he was both hurt and puzzled by the readiness with which Benson had seemingly dismissed him from his regard and liking. He was most undemonstrative himself, but until that night he had as firmly believed in Benson's affection for him as he had believed in any other tangible fact of his existence; more than this, he cherished a great liking for the lawyer; he had been proud to consider him his friend. He did not know that Benson's concern for him, and interest in him, was but one of the many manifestations of his love for Virginia Landray.

“Was there much excitement?” asked Virginia, after a short silence.

“Yes, a good deal. There were speeches at the court-house and a lot of committees were appointed to do a lot of things,” he explained vaguely.

“Who addressed the meeting? Did Mr. Benson?” she questioned. She knew he had more to tell her, but she knew he would tell it in his own way.

“I don't know, I didn't go in. There was more going on outside.” and then he fell silent again. He was thinking of Marian.

“What was the excitement, Stephen?” Virginia asked

“Captain McKeever was enlisting men. You see, President Lincoln has issued a call for men—”

“Did many enlist?”

“Yes, a good many, a hundred, I should say.”

“But you didn't wish to, Stephen?” she said, searching his face anxiously.

“Why do you think that?” he asked, to gain time.

She did not answer him directly.

“I am glad you have come back to me,” she said tenderly, “for I shan't let you go into town again until the excitement is past. It is no place for a hot-headed boy who might easily be led into folly, and you will stay quietly here with me, won't you? Sam can go in tomorrow and bring out your books. That will be the best way; won't it, dear?”

The boy set his teeth in his endeavour to control the workings of his face, which he felt must betray him.

“I suppose it seemed for the moment the only thing left for men to do,” Virginia went on gently. “But the realities of war are so dreadful, that if we would only stop to think, I am sure a better, a wiser way could be found to settle our difficulties.”

He moved restlessly in his chair.

“Oh, this won't be much of a war, Aunt Virginia. President Lincoln only wants men for ninety days, I suppose he knows what's needed. The fellows who enlisted to-night will probably go to Washington, or maybe they won't get any further away than Columbus, where there's to be a big military camp established; but the enlisting was sort of interesting to watch, everybody was cheering and there was a lot of enthusiasm and noise.”

How was he going to tell her of what he had done! He had felt the excitement himself as an intoxicating draught that carried forgetfulness with it. He had gone to extremes of feeling that night of which he had hardly thought himself capable. Men had slapped him on the back, telling him he was a fine fellow, a brave fellow, and every inch a Landray! But more than all, Marian had smiled upon him with love and pride and hero-worship; but how was he to make his Aunt Virginia understand this, or the need he had of the very experience that was to take him from her. She must have realized something of what was passing in his mind, for she said in sudden alarm:

“You are not telling me all, Stephen—you are keeping back something!”

And he answered her with a look so miserable, that she was instantly convinced that this was so.

“Dear Stephen, listen to me, you must stay quietly here and finish fitting yourself for your profession. You will have responsibilities and cares enough, poor boy, just here, you need not go away from home to seek them; the family fortunes need rebuilding, and you must do that. They have been wrecked by just such folly as this, by this love for adventure. You must be very sane and reasonable, you can't give way to these impulses; don't you see it this way, too?”

Her words did not shake his resolution in the least, though they made him profoundly wretched, since he despaired of her ever comprehending his distaste for the career she had mapped out for him. Yet it seemed to him a most brutal thing to do to even try and explain this to her.

“I'm sorry,” he said, with a gulp. “But you'd better know it now—I've enlisted!”

The hand she had been resting on his arm, fell at her side. There was a ghastly pause.

“Stephen! Stephen—how could you?” she cried.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, and there was such depth of misery in his tone that she forbore to reproach him.

“Does Mr. Benson know what you have done?” she asked. As in all her difficulties, she turned now as then, instinctively to the one person who had always been equal to the occasion.

“Yes,” said the boy, “I told him;” but his face clouded.

“What did he say? Didn't he think you had done very wrong?” questioned Virginia.

Stephen nodded.

“What did he propose?”

“Never mind, Aunt Virginia, he proposed all sorts of things, but nothing that fits this case. I'm a member of Captain McKeever's Company, and I shall remain a member as long as there's any need of it. I've given my word, and I've put my name on the muster-roll. I can't take back my word, and I can't take off my name; but we don't know yet how much of a war there is going to be, no one thinks it is going to amount to much. I wish you wouldn't take it so seriously!”

“Won't you tell me what Mr. Benson proposed, Stephen?”

“There is no use thinking of him, Aunt Virginia, he can do nothing, for I shouldn't let him. And anyway, we have had a row about this very matter.”

“You have quarrelled with Mr. Benson!”

“If you choose to call it that—yes. Only I had rather not talk about it.”

But there was one thing more he wished to tell her; and this was what had passed between Marian and him. He knew it would please her if possible, even less than the news of his enlistment; but he deemed it well to get it all over with at once, then they could adjust themselves the sooner to these new conditions which he had so suddenly created.

“What else is there, Stephen?” Virginia asked.

“How do you know there is anything else?” he inquired.

“I can always tell; what is it?”

“Haven't I told you enough for to-night?” he said.

“I would like to know all.”

“Do you know Mr. Benson's uncle?” he asked.

“What about him?”

“Well, do you know his wife?”

“Slightly.”

He gave her an embarrassed smile that she did not understand.

“We Landrays are a proud lot; aren't we? Her husband could buy us out and never feel it—; pay all our debts into the bargain, too, and yet you don't know him or his wife, Aunt Virginia.”

“There is no reason why I should know them.”

“But what have you against them?” he persisted.

“I have nothing against them; they are very worthy people in their way.”

“Oh, Aunt Virginia!” cried the boy. “That's the last thing you can say of any one! I wish you knew her.”

“Knew whom, Stephen?”

“Well, Mrs. Benson, and Miss Benson—Marian—she's the prettiest girl in town.”

“Has Mr. Benson permitted you to form an attachment of which I knew nothing? Did he take you to the house of those people for that?”

“Those people!” scoffed the boy. “I wish you would be a little more generous, Aunt Virginia! It's unfair to judge her like that; and Mr. Benson don't know anything about it anyhow!”

“What do you wish me to think, Stephen; for I suppose I am to take this as a confession of some sort.”

“I've known them—I've known Marian, for four or five years,” muttered the boy sheepishly.

“Well, what of that?” with some displeasure.

“You don't approve?” he asked gloomily.

“No—if you wish me to understand that you have committed yourself, I don't approve. There is every reason why I should not.”

“I wish you did,” he said, “for it's settled—about Marian, I mean.”

Yet later when he went to his room, he had the grace to be bitterly disappointed with himself, and with the situation.

He felt that they had grown strangely apart. That the war, and Marian, and his own act, had come between them, and that in spite of his real affection for his aunt, the old frank relation could never again exist.