Lenore trembled in the exquisite pain of the faith which she prayed was beginning to illumine Dorn’s dark and tragic soul.

“If we are blessed with a son—­and if he must go to war—­to kill and be killed—­you will reconcile that with God because our son shall have been taught what you should have been taught—­what must be taught to all the sons of the future.”

“What will—­that be?” queried Dorn.

“The meaning of life—­the truth of immortality,” replied Lenore.  “We live on—­we improve.  That is enough for faith.”

“How will that prevent war?”

“It will prevent it—­in the years to come.  Mothers will take good care that children from babyhood shall learn the consequences of fight—­of war.  Boys will learn that if the meaning of war to them is the wonder of charge and thunder of cannon and medals of distinction, to their mothers the meaning is loss and agony.  They will learn the terrible difference between your fury and eagerness to lunge with bayonet and your horror of achievement when the disemboweled victims lie before you.  The glory of a statue to the great general means countless and nameless graves of forgotten soldiers.  The joy of the conquering army contrasts terribly with the pain and poverty and unquenchable hate of the conquered.”

“I see what you mean,” rejoined Dorn.  “Such teaching of children would change the men of the future.  It would mean peace for the generations to come.  But as for my boy—­it would make him a poor soldier.  He would not be a fighter.  He would fall easy victim to the son of the father who had not taught this beautiful meaning of life and terror of war.  I’d want my son to be a man.”

“That teaching—­would make him—­all the more a man,” said Lenore, beginning to feel faint.

“But not in the sense of muscle, strength, courage, endurance.  I’d rather there never was peace than have my son inferior to another man’s.”

“My hope for the future is that all men will come to teach their sons the wrong of violence.”

“Lenore, never will that day come,” replied Dorn.

She saw in him the inevitableness of the masculine attitude; the difference between man and woman; the preponderance of blood and energy over the higher motives.  She felt a weak little woman arrayed against the whole of mankind.  But she could not despair.  Unquenchable as the sun was this fire within her.

“But it might come?” she insisted, gently, but with inflexible spirit.

“Yes, it might—­if men change!”

“You have changed.”

“Yes.  I don’t know myself.”

“If we do have a boy, will you let me teach him what I think is right?” Lenore went on, softly.

“Lenore!  As if I would not!” he exclaimed.  “I try to see your way, but just because I can’t I’ll never oppose you.  Teach me if you can!”