He was so haggard when he came down late the next morning that his mother could not have believed such a change possible in so short a time. "It is going to be more serious than I thought," was her mental comment as she poured him out a cup of coffee. It was indeed; for after drinking the coffee in silence, he looked frowningly out of the window for a time; then said abruptly to the waiter, "Leave the room." The tone was so stern that the man stole out with a scared look. "Willard," began Mrs. Merwyn, with great dignity, "you are acting in a manner unbecoming your birth and breeding." Turning from the window, he fixed his eyes on his mother with a look that made her shiver. At last he asked, in a low, stern voice, "Why did you bind me with that oath?" "Because I foresaw some unutterable folly such as you are now manifesting." "No," he said, in the same cold, hard tone. "It was because your cursed Confederacy was more to you than my freedom, than my manhood,--more to you than I am myself." "O Willard! What ravings!" "Was my father insane when he quietly insisted on his rights, yielding you yours? What right had you to cripple my life?" "I took the only effective means to prevent you from doing just that for yourself." "How have you succeeded?" "I have prevented you, as a man of honor, from doing, under a gust of passion, what would spoil all my plans and hopes." "I am not a man. You have done your best to prevent me from being one. You have bound me with a chain, and made me like one of the slaves on your plantation. Your plans and hopes? Have I no right to plans and hopes?" "You know my first thought has been of you and for you." "No, I do not know this. I now remember that, when you bound me, a thoughtless, selfish, indolent boy, you said that you would have torn your heart out rather than marry my father had you foreseen what was coming. This miserable egotist, Jeff Davis, and his scheme of empire, cost what it may, are more to you than husband or child. A mother would have said: 'You have reached manhood and have the rights of a man. I will advise you and seek to guide you. You know my feelings and views, and in their behalf I will even entreat you; but you have reached that age when the law makes you free, and holds you accountable to your own conscience.' Of what value is my life if it is not mine? I should have the right to make my own life, like others." "You have the right to make it, but not to mar it." "In other words, your prejudices, your fanaticism, are to take the place of my conscience and reason. You expect me to carry a sham of manhood out into the world. I wish you to release me from my oath."