“In view of your explanation,” answered Arthur, “I must decline to act as your friend in this matter.” “But why?” “Because I will have no part nor lot in a murder. I detest duelling, as you do; I regard it as a relic of feudalism which ought to give place to something better in our enlightened and law-governed time. But while it lasts, I am forced to consent to it, however unwillingly. I recognise the fact that the right of the individual to make private war on his own account is the only basis on which nations can logically or even sanely claim the right to make public war. Nations are only aggregations of individuals, and their rights are only the sum of the rights previously possessed by the individuals composing them. But while I feel in that way about duelling, I can have no part in a contest in which I know in advance that one of the contestants is going to shoot to kill, while the other is merely standing up to be shot at and does not himself intend to make war at all.” “Very well,” answered Kilgariff. “I’ll get some one else to send the letter.” He summoned an orderly and directed him to go to a neighbouring camp and ask an officer there to call upon Lieutenant-colonel Kilgariff, “concerning a purely personal matter, and not at all with reference to any matter of service.” The officer, a fiery little fellow, responded at once to the summons, and he promptly wrote—spelling it very badly—the message which Kilgariff had asked Arthur to send. Half an hour later, the messenger who had borne the note returned with it unopened. For explanation, he said:— “Captain Harbach had his head blown off in the trenches just before daylight this morning.” XVIII EVELYN’S REVELATION IT was during Arthur’s absence at Petersburg that Evelyn began talking with Dorothy about herself. “It isn’t nice,” she said, as the two sat together in the porch one day, “for me to have reserves and secrets with you, Dorothy.” “But why not? Every one is entitled to have reserves. Why should not you?” “Oh, because—well, things are different with me. You are good to me—nobody was ever so good to me. I am living here, and loving you and letting you love me, and all the time you know nothing at all about me. It isn’t fair. I hate unfairness.” “So do I,” answered Dorothy. “But this isn’t unfair. I never asked you to tell me anything about yourself.” “That’s the worst of it. That’s what makes it so mean and ugly and unfair for me to go on in this way. Why should you be so good to me when you don’t know anything about me?” “Why, because, although I do not know your history, _I know you_. If it is painful for you to tell me about yourself—” “It wouldn’t be painful,” the girl answered, with an absent, meditative look in her eyes. But she added nothing to the sentence. She merely caressed Dorothy’s hand. After a little silence, she suddenly asked:— “What’s a ‘parole,’ Dorothy?” Dorothy explained, but the explanation did not seem to satisfy.