"Listen," she broke in. "I meant to make you weak. I implore you now to be strong. You must go to war! But with all my heart and soul I beg you to go with a changed spirit.... You were about to do a terrible thing. You hated the German in you and meant to kill it by violence. You despised the German blood and you meant to spill it. Like a wild man you would have rushed to fight, to stab and beat, to murder--and you would have left your breast open for a bayonet-thrust.... Oh, I know it!... Kurt, you are horribly wrong. That is no way to go to war.... War is a terrible business, but men don't wage it for motives such as yours. We Americans all have different strains of blood--English--French--German. One is as good as another. You are obsessed--you are out of your head on this German question. You must kill that idea--kill it with one bayonet-thrust of sense.... You must go to war as my soldier--with my ideal. Your country has called you to help uphold its honor, its pledged word. You must fight to conquer an enemy who threatens to destroy freedom.... You must be brave, faithful, merciful, clean--an American soldier!... You are only one of a million. You have no personal need for war. You are as good, as fine, as noble as any man--my choice, sir, of all the men in the world!... I am sending you. I am giving you up.... Oh, my darling--you will never know how hard it is!... But go! Your life has been sad. You have lost so much. I feel in my woman's heart what will be--if only you'll change--if you see God in this as I see. Promise me. Love that which you hated. Prove for yourself what I believe. Trust me--promise me... Then--oh, I know God will send you back to me!" He fell upon his knees before her to bury his face in her lap. His whole frame shook. His hands plucked at her dress. A low sob escaped him. "Lenore," he whispered, brokenly, "I can't see God in this--for me!... I can't promise!" CHAPTER XXI Thirty masked men sat around a long harvest mess-table. Two lanterns furnished light enough to show a bare barnlike structure, the rough-garbed plotters, the grim set of hard lips below the half-masks, and big hands spread out, ready to draw from the hat that was passing. The talk was low and serious. No names were spoken. A heavy man, at the head of the table, said: "We thirty, picked men, represent the country. Let each member here write on his slip of paper his choice of punishment for the I.W.W.'s--death or deportation...." The members of the band bent their masked faces and wrote in a dead silence. A noiseless wind blew through the place. The lanterns flickered; huge shadows moved on the walls. When the papers had been passed back to the leader he read them.