“It is now _vae victis_, and the only hope is in resistance,” he proceeded, sadly. “Yielding is esteemed simply a confession of cowardice. The miscreants who rule us know no restraint except fear. You will be astonished when I tell you that the last few years have almost overthrown the views I have held for a lifetime. I am nearer agreeing with Legaie than I ever was in my whole life.” The old fellow shook his head in deep despondency over this fatal declension. Jacquelin did not agree with him. He had all a young man’s confidence. He determined that he would effect his ends by law. He shortly had an illustration of what the Doctor meant. Mrs. Gray was failing steadily. The strain she had undergone had been too much for her. She had lived only until Jacquelin’s return. To the end, all her heart was on her old home. In those last days she went back constantly to the time when she had come as a bride to her home adorned with all that love and forethought could devise. The war and the long years of struggle seemed to have been blotted out and her memory appeared only to retain and to dwell on every scene of the old life. One of her constant thoughts was: If she could only have lain at the old home, at her husband’s side! So, she passed quietly away. In the watches of the last night, when no one was with her but Jacquelin, after she had talked to him of Rupert and confided him to his care, she asked Jacquelin if he thought she might ever be taken home. His father and she had picked out the spot under one of the great trees. “Mother,” said Jacquelin, kneeling beside her and holding one of her thin, transparent hands in his, “if I live and God is good to me, you shall lie there.” He had consulted General Legaie and Steve on the subject, and they both had thought that the burying-ground had not been conveyed in the deed to Still, though Leech, to whom, as counsel for Still, they had broached the matter, asserted that it had been included. The day Mrs. Gray died, Dr. Cary wrote a note to Still on Jacquelin’s behalf, though without his knowledge, indicating his cousin’s wish to bury his mother beside his father, and saying that it would not be held to affect any question of ownership at issue between them. To this Still replied that while he should be “very glad to do anything that Dr. Cary or _any member of his family_ asked for _themselves_,” he would not permit any _outsider_ to be buried on his place, especially one who had insulted him; that he did not acknowledge that any question existed as to his title; and that he was prepared to show that, if so, it was unfounded. He added that he was “going to remove the tomb-stones, cut down the trees, clear up the place, and get rid of the old grave-yard altogether.” A part of the letter was evidently written by a lawyer.