The woman was the first to speak. There was no longer in her face the strain of grief or anxiety, the steady look of pain. Her eyes were shining and tearless. Her hands were clasped. “Rhett,” she said, “I’m proud of him. He’s the bravest boy in the world. What a splendid, splendid letter!” For one moment the mother’s pride in her offspring asserted itself, the spirit of her Kentucky ancestors shone forth in her countenance, and she spoke the words that came straight from her heart to her lips. Then, suddenly realizing that for the first time in all their twenty years of married life, she had expressed a thought in direct antagonism to the opinion of the husband whom she honored and loved, she sank back into a chair, pale-faced and silent, and let her hands fall dejectedly to her side. But there was no protest from him. Instead, with a look in his eyes which she could not quite fathom, he came over and sat down by her and kissed her and said:-- “We are both proud of his spirit, Mary, however mistaken his conduct. But he is too good a boy for us to permit him to be lost and destroyed in this awful whirlpool of war. We must get him back.” Late in the evening of that day there came a knock at the kitchen door of the Bannister house. When the door was opened some one from the outer darkness thrust in a scrap of paper and disappeared. On the paper was scrawled:-- “Rounding-up squad expected at Scranton to-night. Look out!” When Rhett Bannister read the warning, he said:-- “It makes little difference now. It simply hastens my departure. Doubtless the end will be the same.” To his wife he added:-- “I start to-morrow morning to try to reach Robert. The probability is that I shall not succeed. But the least I can do is to make the effort.” Then, gently, calmly, carefully, he outlined to his wife the plan that he had in mind, and explained to her why there was nothing left for him to do but to try to reach and save the boy. The effort might cost him his life, but to stay at home was likely also to cost him his life, and to attempt to escape from the Federal authorities was utterly useless. There was a wild possibility, the thousandth part of a chance, that he might get to Bob and be able to take the boy’s place in the ranks. That was all. And when it was all said, he did not find her nerveless, or hysterical, or in tears, as he had expected and feared, but, instead, in her eyes there was a look of resolution and bravery, across her gentle lips there was drawn a line of courage and determination such as, in all their married life, he had never seen there before. “I am content,” she said. “I believe you are doing right. Rhett, dear, no matter what happens now, come life or death or desolation, I shall have two heroes to worship and dream of as long as I live.” Strange it is, and divine, that in a woman so weak so strong a spirit will develop when the right hour strikes.