As I came to a pause and glanced back, wondering if there could be anything wrong with my parole, he swung his cap and pointed. “That officer coming yonder wants to speak with you.” Across the open field at my right, hidden until then by a slight rise of ground, a mounted cavalryman was riding rapidly toward me, the wind blowing back his cape so as to make conspicuous its bright yellow lining. For the moment his lowered head prevented recognition, but as he cleared the ditch and came up smiling, I saw it was Caton. “By Jove, Wayne, but this is lucky!” he exclaimed, springing to the ground beside me. “I've actually been praying for a week past that I might meet you. Holmes, of your service, told me you had pulled through, but everything is in such confusion that to hunt for you would have been the proverbial quest after a needle in a haystack. You have been paroled then?” “Yes, I'm completely out of it at last,” I answered, feeling to the full the deep sympathy expressed by his face. “It was a bitter pill, but one which had to be taken.” “I know it, old fellow,” and his hand-grasp on mine tightened warmly. “Of course I 'm glad, there's no use denying that, glad we won; glad the old Union has been preserved as our fathers gave it to us; glad slavery on this continent has passed away for ever, and so will you be before you die. Yet I am sincerely sorry for those who have given their all and lost. God knows you fought a good fight, fought as Americans only can, even though it was in a bad cause. That is the pity of it; such heroism, such sacrifice, and all wasted. If you have been beaten there is no disgrace in it, for no other nation in this world could ever have accomplished it. But this was a case of Greek meeting Greek, and we had the money, the resources, and the men. But, Wayne, I tell you, I do not believe there is to-day a spark of bitterness in the heart of a fighting Federal soldier. We fought you to a finish because it's in our blood; we whipped you because we were compelled to in order to preserve the Union, but we'd share our last cent, or last crust, with any gray-back now. I know I feel as if every paroled Confederate were a brother in need.” “I know, Caton,” I said,--and the words came hard,--“your fighting men respect us, even as we do them. It has been a sheer game of which could stand the most punishment, and the weaker had to go down. I know all that, but, nevertheless, it is a terrible ending to so much of hope, suffering, and sacrifice.” “Yes,” he admitted soberly, “you have given your all. But those who survive have a wonderful work before them. They must lay anew the foundations; they are to be the rebuilders of States. You were going home?” I smiled bitterly at this designation of my journey's end. “Yes, if you can so name a few weed-grown fields and a vacant negro cabin. I certainly shall have to lay the foundation anew most literally.”