"Dear Bob," the letter began in the unmistakable neat hand we had read on the top of the box, "I cannot leave you without this word. I cannot explain--my brain is on fire, I think--but try to judge with lenience. Blood-poisoning set in, and my father died in hospital last week. On his dying bed I swore to him that I would never raise my hand against his country. I can't repeat all he said, but he's right, Bob, the South is wrong! Secession is wrong. I brought the body home, but mother could not come to the funeral. She is not at all violent, but she will never be the same again--she didn't know me, Bob. I can't describe how pitiful she is. Uncle James was her twin brother, you know, and they were everything to each other. When we heard of Fort Sumter she was nearly wild, and I promised her with my hand on her Bible never to fight the South. I meant it then--my friends, my home and you all. But I would have got her to release me if I could. But she couldn't release me now, and I would die before I broke that promise, the way she is now. I can't stay here. I couldn't look anybody in the face. I wish I could be shot. I may be, yet. I am going to Italy to see about those silk-worms for the plantation, that father was interested in. The war can't last much longer and it will be something to do. Mother is well looked after and I can't stay in this country--it's not decent. Can you write to me, Bob? I don't ask much--just write a line. What could I do? Write, for God's sake. "LOCKWOOD LEE PRYNNE." Below this signature, in a different hand, was scrawled: "I return this letter. I have nothing to say. "R. S. L." Alas, alas, the pity of it! The grey moss and the blue forget-me-nots grow together now over many a nameless grave, and Northern youth and Southern maid pull daisy petals beside the sunken cannon ball; but the ancient scar ploughed deep, and old records like this have heat enough in them yet to sear the nerves of us who trembled, maybe, in the womb, when those black lists of the wounded trembled in our mother's hands. What a hideous thing it is! Can any bugle's screaming cover those anguished cries, or any scarlet stripes soak up the spreading blood? Bullets are merciful, my brothers, beside the cruel holes they pierce in hearts they never touched. Roger laid the papers and letter reverently to one side, and I, who had been reading over his shoulder, brushed impatiently at my eyes. (I was not entirely a well man yet, remember!) Below the newspaper lay a signed deed, formally conveying a parcel of twenty acres of land, carefully measured and described, to Lockwood Lee Prynne, his heirs and assigns, and all the rest of the legal jargon. This was hardly burned at all.