He rose awkwardly and started to the door. Jennie placed her hand on his wounded arm with a gesture of pathetic protest. "Dick!" "I can't help it, I must go--" "Not like this!" "I can't smile and lie to you. It means too much. I hate that man. He's a scoundrel, if God ever made one--" Jennie's hand slipped from his arm. "That will do now--not another word--" "I beg your pardon, Jennie," he stammered. "I didn't think what I was saying, honey. It just popped out because it was inside. You'll forgive me?" The anger died in her eyes and she took his outstretched hand. "Of course, I understand--and I'm sorry. I appreciate the love you've given me. I wish in my heart I could have returned it. You deserve it--" The Captain lifted his left hand. "No pity, please. I'm man enough to fight--and I'm going to fight. You're not yet _Signora_ Socola--" The girl laughed. "That's more like a soldier!" "We'll be friends anyhow, Jennie?" "Always." The Captain left the Senator's house with a grim smile playing about his strong mouth. He had made up his mind to fight for love and country on the same base. He would ask for his transfer to the Secret Service of the Confederacy. CHAPTER XXXII THE PATH OF GLORY Jefferson Davis had created the most compact and terrible engine of war set in motion since Napoleon founded the Empire of France. It had been done under conditions of incredible difficulty, but it had been done. The smashing of McClellan's army brought to the North the painful realization of this fact. Abraham Lincoln must call for another half million soldiers and no man could foresee the end. Davis had begun in April, 1861, without an arsenal, laboratory or powder mill of any capacity, and with no foundry or rolling mill for iron except the little Tredegar works in Richmond. He had supplied them. Harassed by an army of half a million men in blue led by able generals and throttled by a cable of steel which the navy had drawn about his coast line, he had done this work and at the same time held his own defiantly and successfully. Crippled by a depreciated currency, assaulted daily by a powerful conspiracy of sore-head politicians and quarreling generals, strangled by a blockade that deprived him of nearly all means of foreign aid--he had still succeeded in raising the needed money. Unable to use the labor of slaves except in the unskilled work of farms, hampered by lack of transportation even of food for the army, with no stock of war material on hand,--steel, copper, leather or iron with which to build his establishments--yet with quiet persistence he set himself to solve these problems and succeeded.