The day went by, and the night, and the next day, and Bob did not return. The next night a candle shone all night from the porch-window, that the boy might be guided safely to his door, if haply he should come back, and all night Rhett Bannister lay sleepless and perplexed. The next morning he started out to find Seth Mills. It was the first time in two weeks that he had left his own premises. He met the old man in the road, hobbling toward the Bannister home. “Seth,” he said, “I want you to tell me where Robert has gone, and I want you to tell me now. Do you hear? _now!_” His voice rose in anger as he spoke, a look of determination was in his eyes, and the old man knew that the time had come when he must reveal his secret. “Yes,” he replied deliberately, “I was jes’ comin’ over to tell ye. I think it’s time now ye ort to know. Well, sir, the night before he left, Bob come an’ told me ’at he was a-goin’ to Easton to try to pervail on the provost-marshal there to let him go as a substitute in your place. Ef he ain’t back to-day I expect they’ve let him do it. Now you’ve got it, Rhett Bannister, straight from the shoulder; make the most of it.” For a moment Bannister did not reply. His worst fear had been realized. A great wave of indignation and anger swept over his soul. He stood over the bent form of his old neighbor, white-faced and quivering. “And you!” he cried, “you of all men, to encourage him, to assist him in this rebellious, this disgraceful, this suicidal folly!” And again the old man stood up very straight. “I did encourage him,” he replied. “And I glory in his grit. And ef you hed one drop of human blood in your veins, you’d be the proudest father on the Lord’s footstool to-day.” Then, lest in his wrath he should wholly forget himself, Bannister turned on his heel and strode away. But he did not go immediately to his home. He felt that he could not yet trust himself to tell his wife. And when, finally, he did go to her he found that she already knew. Seth Mills had been there and told her that since he had seen her husband he had received a letter from Bob, saying that he had been refused as a substitute, but that he was about starting to the front with Sergeant Anderson to enlist. Then Rhett Bannister lost entire control of his tongue. “So,” he said, “the radicals have caught their prey at last. Such Lincoln bigots as Seth Mills and Henry Bradbury and Sarah Jane Stark have drilled into the boy’s mind their brand of pestilent patriotism till they have turned his head and sent him off on this wild-goose chase after glory. Little thought have they for his health or life or the peace of mind of his parents. And when he dies, as die he will, in that awful struggle, his blood will be on their heads. Oh, it’s horrible! horrible!”