“Look here!” he burst out. “I've fooled my time away here digging into your law books just to please my Aunt Virginia, but it's got to stop; there's no use—no sense in it! I can only be of use to her by being of use to myself in my own way! I can't think with her brains nor hope with her hopes; I've got my own hopes, my own sense of things, and they don't fit with hers—that's all there is to it! Of course, it's going to be a wrench to her, it's going to be a wrench to me; maybe you don't think I love her? I tell you I do! She's been all the mother I have ever had—you know that—and because of her I've never missed anything in my life, but she's got an awfully strong will; she'll make endless sacrifices of herself, but her opinions are like iron, and she's never been able to see what I see! I've told her all along that I was wasting my time here with you; but she's set her heart on my having a profession; nothing I can say moves her, you know that—you know what I say is all so!” he finished in an injured tone. “This is all beside the question,” said Benson coldly. “No, it isn't! The wrench has got to come. I've got to have my own head in choosing for myself, and this lucky war comes just in time. It's my one chance to get away and get started on my own hook decently, and I'm going to enlist! Now we won't discuss that side of the case again, please. It's settled.” “I was merely going to propose that I take your place,” said Benson quietly. “You take my place—where?” demanded the boy. “In McKeever's Company.” “Well, you are funny!” laughed the boy. “I'm quite in earnest,” answered Benson stiffly. “No, no! You don't mean that!” “I'm quite in earnest,” repeated Benson. “Do you mean you'd enlist just to keep me from enlisting?” inquired Stephen incredulously. “That's what I said.” But Stephen waived this aside. “Oh, you come, too!” he cried. “It will do you a world of good, it's just the sort of thing you need, Mr. Benson!” Benson frowned. “I said I'd go in your place.” “Well, that's nonsense,” objected the boy. “Very well, then. There is nothing more to be said. Only this, if you don't do what it is your manifest duty to do, what your sense of gratitude should make you do willingly and gladly, I'm done with you! and this war won't last always. You'll be coming back one of these days, it may be within a month or so, and you won't find me the friend I have tried to be, and am still willing to be, if you will only let me serve you!” At his words Stephen rose slowly from his chair, and took up his hat from the table. His face was white. “I may even be able to stand that,” he said in a voice he vainly strove to render firm; then not daring to trust himself further he turned quickly to the door, and hurried from the room. He was deeply hurt, so hurt that he did not realize where he was going until he found himself striding along the deserted country road in the direction of his home.