"Oh, then I doubt it. I'm not at all brave as he was. You ought to know that." "You have the courage that a veteran general most values in a soldier. You might be half dead from terror, but you wouldn't run away. Besides," I added, smiling, "you would not be afraid of shot and shell, only the noise of a battle. In this respect your brother, no doubt, differed from you. In the grand consciousness of right, and in his faithful performance of duty, I believe his face was as serene as the aspect of Mr. Yocomb when he looked at the coming storm. As far as peace is concerned, his heaven began on earth. I envy him." "Mr. Morton, I thank you for these words about my brother," she said very gently, and with a little pathetic quaver in her voice. "They have given me a comforting association with that awful day. Oh, I thank God for the thought. Remembering what Mrs. Yocomb said, it reconciles me to it all, as I never thought I could be reconciled. If Herbert believed that it was his duty to be there, it was best he should be there. How strange it is that you should think of this first, and not I!" "Will you pardon me if I take exception to one thing you say? I do not think it follows that he ought to have been there simply because he felt it right to be there." "Why, Mr. Morton! ought one not to do right at any and every cost? That seemed to me the very pith of Mrs. Yocomb's teaching, and I think she made it clear that it's always best to do right." "I think so too, most emphatically; but what is right, Miss Warren?" "That's too large a question for me to answer in the abstract; but is not the verdict of conscience right for each one of us?" "I can't think so," I replied, with a shrug. "About every grotesque, horrible act ever committed in this world has been sanctioned by conscience. Delicate women have worn hair-cloth and walked barefooted on cold pavements in midnight penance. The devil is scarcely more cruel than the Church, for ages, taught that God was. It's true that Christ's life was one of self-sacrifice; but was there any useless, mistaken self-sacrifice in it? If God is anything like Mrs. Yocomb, nothing could be more repugnant to him than blunders of this kind." She looked at me with a startled face, and I saw that my words had unsettled her mind. "If conscience cannot guide, what can?" she faltered. "Is not conscience God's voice within us?" "No. Conscience may become God's worst enemy--that is, any God that I could worship or even respect." "Mr. Morton, you frighten me. How can I do right unless I follow my conscience?"