“What do you propose doing?” he finally asked, to get his thoughts from the torturing grip of conscience.

“I propose to install two trained nurses in the house.  You are not to let a soul know what your daughter is suffering from.  I hope to be able to check the evil in the blood, but I must be secure against any form of meddling.  You must avoid your daughter’s chamber—­indeed, it would be better if you could quit Acredale for a few days.  You would be less embarrassed by intrusive neighbors and keep your conscience clear of evasions.”

So it was settled that Boone should take up his quarters in Warchester, coming out late every night for news.

Meanwhile, Acredale had read with amazement, first, of the finding of Jack Sprague among the rebels at Point Lookout, then, the extraordinary story of the court-martial and death-sentence.  Every one called at the Sprague mansion, but it was in the hands of the servants, Olympia and her guest having returned to Washington so soon as the story of her brother’s peril reached her.  Dick, too, had flown to his adored Jack, and Acredale, confounded by the swift alternations in the young soldier’s fortunes, settled down to wait the outcome with a tender sorrow for the bright young life eclipsed in disgrace so awful, death so ignominious.

We have looked on while most of the people in this history worked through night to light in the moral perplexities besetting them.  We have seen warriors in love and danger gallantly extricating themselves and plucking the bloom of safety from the dragon path of danger.  We have seen a moral combat in the minds of most of the people who have had to do with our luckless Jack.  But all herein set down has been the merest November melancholy compared to the charnel-house of dead hopes and baffled purposes that tortured Elisha Boone.  Unlovely as Boone has seemed to us, he had one of the prime conditions of human goodness—­he loved.  He had loved very fondly his son Wesley.  He loved very tenderly his daughter Kate.

With this love came the sanctification that must abide where love is.  I don’t think he had much of what may be called the second condition of human goodness—­reverence.  If he had, we should never have seen him push revenge to the verge of crime.  Richard Perley, it is true, accuses him of a turpitude that makes a man shudder and abhor; but allowances must be made for the exaggeration of a careless spendthrift—­a “good fellow,” than whom I can conceive of nothing so useless and mischievous in the human economy.  For my part, I think I could endure the frank heartlessness of a man like Boone more philosophically than the false good-nature of the creature men call a good fellow.

Obviously, Boone did not take Dick Perley’s estimate of him very seriously.  He, too, could have told a tale not without its strong features of a shiftless set, constantly borrowing, constantly squandering, constantly provoking the thrifty to accumulate unguarded properties.  All this, however, had faded from the old man’s mind now.  He had avenged himself upon the life-long scorners of his name and fame; but the blow that shattered their pride had sent a dart to his own heart.  His beautiful Kate, his big-hearted, high-spirited, man-witted girl!—­she would bear a leper-taint for life, and his hand had put the virus on her perfect flesh!