And now? He determined before the close of August that, come what would, he would enlist. He could slip past some way, and so with only an evasive explanation to Ralph he went to Montreal. It was a ghastly and heart-breaking experience. He tried again and again, and no examiner would pass him. He went to the greatest of Canadian specialists--a wise and understanding man. "Give up the idea, boy," he said gently. "You might live six months. The chances are you would not one. You have no right to insist for the good of the service. And let me tell you something. You are not the only man to-day who feels that to be denied the chance to fling himself into this mighty thing is the greatest calamity life could offer. We men who are too old feel it. Many a man with burdens of political, social, professional, industrial responsibility in him so imperative that he must remain here, feels it. You are one of a great host to whom is denied the very final essence of human experience, giving their blood--for the finest vision the earth has yet seen. Don't let it down you. Go home to the States and help them to learn what this thing means. They can't know. It is different with us. Where England leads, Canada follows. The States will go in only as the result of an inner conviction that this struggle is between the kind of things they stand for and the kind of things which led them to their original break with England, their original vision and plan of government. That is what it is, but your people will be slow to see it. They are not attacked. England and France are. It is not fear of attack that will finally take you in. You yourself have said that. It is the consciousness that the right of self-government by peoples on this earth is threatened. Go back and help your land see it." Dick scarcely heard the counsel. He was conscious only of his sentence and he refused to accept that. He went in turn to the leading specialists in the States, men whom he had consulted in the past, and from each heard the same verdict. He knew they were right. That was the dreadful truth. He knew that forcing himself into service, as he might very well do in England under the circumstances of the moment there, would mean training a man who could not hold out instead of one who could. Dick went back to Sabinsport a beaten, miserable man. Ralph was quick to sense that some overwhelming rebuff had come to Dick. He suspected what it was. If Dick had not been too crushed at the moment to realize that his dear but limited and obstinate friend was making awkward efforts to show his sympathy, it is quite possible that they might have come together sufficiently to discuss the war without rancor. But Dick was blind to everything but his own misery. He failed Ralph utterly.