Not one showed any sign of softening or deference, and, his mind a blank, he withdrew, driven back to his isolation by an inflexible ostracism.  The world had come to an end.  Public opinion was master—­master of his own staff.  He sank down before his desk, staring, just staring; hearing the roar of battle which was drawing nearer; staring at the staff orderlies, who came in to take down the wall maps, and at his aide packing up the papers and leaving him in a room bare of all the appurtenances of his position, with little idea in his coma of despair of the hour or even that time was passing.  Finally, some one touched him on the shoulder.  He looked up to see his aide at his elbow saluting and Francois, his valet, standing by with an overcoat.

“We must go, Your Excellency,” said the aide.

“Go?” asked Westerling dazedly.

“Yes, the staff has already gone to a new headquarters.”

The announcement was the needle prick that once more aroused him to a sense of his situation.  He rose and struck his fist on the desk in a pulsing outbreak of energy and stubbornness.

“But I stay!  I stay!” he cried.  “The enemy is not near.  He can’t be!”

“Very near, general.  You can see for yourself, said the aide.

“I will!” Westerling replied.  “I will see how the conspiracy of the staff has made ruin of my plans!”

Again something of his old manner returned; something of the stoic’s fatalism flashed in his eye.  He shook his head to Francois, refusing to slip his arms into the sleeves of the coat which Francois dropped on to his shoulders.

“Yes, I will see for myself!” he repeated, as he led the way out to the veranda.  “I’ll see what goblin scared my pusillanimous staff and robbed me of victory!”

* * * * *

Every cry of triumph in war is paid for by a cry of pain.  On one side, anguish of heart; on the other, inexpressible ecstasy.  The Gray staff were oblivious of fatigue in the glum, overpowering necessity of restoring the organization of the Gray army for a second stand.  The Brown staff were oblivious of fatigue in the exhilaration of victory.

Had a picture of the sight which the judge’s son had witnessed at dawn in the path of the attack and the counter-attack been thrown on the wall of the big lobby room of the Brown headquarters, there might have been less exultation on the part of the junior officers of the staff gathered there.  They were not seeing or thinking of the dead.  They were seeing only brown-headed pins pushing gray-headed pins out of the way on the map, as the symbol of an attack become a pursuit and of better than their dreams come true—­the symbol of security for altar fires and race and nation.  They were of the living, in the mightiest thrill that a soldier may know.