"It is impossible!" said the father. "It is true, however, like a good many impossible things!" again sneered the physician. "And I have been thinking whether some others of members of the State militia would not be found like your amiable son--too _busy_ to pay any attention to the defence of the State!" "Dr. Pomeroy!" said the father, after one moment of almost stupefied silence. "Dr. Pomeroy, you have not been friends with my son for a long time, and I know it, though I do not know what could have caused any disagreement. But I do not suppose you would deliberately tell a falsehood about him that could be detected in half an hour; and I want to know what there is hidden in your words, more than you have chosen to convey." "You had better ask your son when he comes!" was the reply. "No--I ask _you, now_, and I think you had better answer me!" said the old man. "Well, then," answered the doctor, "if you insist upon it, my love for the young man is not so warm as to give me a great deal of pain in the telling, and you may know all you wish. Your son has been doubted a little, ever since the breaking out of the war, from his repeated refusals of positions in the army; and--" "The man who says that my son is disloyal, lies!" cried the old man, interrupting him. "You, or any other man!" "It was not on the ground of his _disloyalty_ that he was suspected!" sneered the doctor. "And what ground then?" asked the father, his face and his whole manner showing something terrible within that could be only partially suppressed. "The ground of his _cowardice_, since you will have it!" spoke the doctor, in such a tone of fiendish exultation as Mephistopheles may have used to Faust, at the moment of assuring him that the last hope of happiness on earth or pardon from heaven had been swept away in the slaughter of Valentine and the moral murder of Marguerite. "There is not an officer in the Reserves, who heard him refuse to join the regiment this morning, but believes him--yes, _knows_ him, to be an arrant poltroon." "Doctor Philip Pomeroy, you are a liar as well as a traitor and a scoundrel! If I had two legs, and still was, as I am, old enough to be your father, you would not leave this house without broken bones! Get out of it, send me your bill to-morrow, or even to-day, and never let me see you set foot in it again while I live!" The face of the old man was fearful, at that juncture. In spite of the pain of his disabled limb, he had grasped his cane and struggled to a standing position, before concluding his violent words; and as he concluded, passion overcame all prudence, and the heavy cane went by the doctor's head, crashing through the window and taking its way out into the garden, at the same moment when his limb gave way and he sunk back into his chair with a groan that was almost a shriek, clutching at the bell-rope that hung near him and nearly tearing it from its fastenings.