“Go and ask, Josiah.”  McGregor came up as he spoke.

“The President was killed last night, John, by an assassin!”

“Lincoln killed!”

“Yes—­I will tell you by and by—­now this is all we know.  I must make my rounds.  We leave to-morrow for home.”

John sat alone.  This measureless calamity had at once on the thoughtful young soldier the effect of lessening the influences of his over-sensitive surrender to pain and its attendant power to weaken self-control.  Like others, in the turmoil of war he had given too little thought to the Promethean torment of a great soul chained to the rock of duty—­the man to whom like the Christ “the common people listened gladly.”  He looked back over his own physical suffering with sense of shame at his defeat, and sat up in his chair as if with a call on his worn frame to assert the power of a soul to hear and answer the summons of a great example.

“Thank you, Josiah,” he said cheerfully.  “No coffee is like yours to set a fellow up.”  A greater tonic was acting.  “We go home to-morrow.”

“That’s good.  Listen, sir—­what’s that?”

“Minute guns, Josiah.  Have you heard the news?”

“Yes, sir—­it’s awful; but we are going home to Westways.”

CHAPTER XXX

As the trains went northward crowded with more or less damaged officers and men, John Penhallow in his faded engineer uniform showed signs of renewed vitality.  He chatted in his old companionable way with the other home-bound volunteers, and as they went through Baltimore related to McGregor with some merriment his bloodless duel with Mrs. Penhallow’s Rebel brother Henry.  The doctor watched him with the most friendly satisfaction and with such pride as a florist may have in his prospering flowers.  The colour of health was returning to the pale face and there was evidently relief from excessive pain.  He heard, too, as they chatted, of John’s regrets that his simple engineer dress was not as neat as he would have desired and of whether his aunt would dislike it.  Wearing the station of Westways Crossing, John fell into a laughing account of his first arrival and of the meeting with Leila.  The home-tonic was of use and he was glad with gay gladness that the war was over.

As the train stopped, he said as he got out, “There is no carriage—­you telegraphed, McGregor?”

“Yes, I did, but the service is, I fancy, snowed under just now with messages.  I will walk on and have them send for you.”

“No,” said John, “I am quite able to walk.  Come along.”

“Are you really able?”

“Yes—­we’ll take it easy.”

“There isn’t much left of you to carry what remains.”

“My legs are all right, Tom.”  He led the way through the woods until they came out on the avenue.  “Think of it, Tom,—­it is close to nine years since first I left Grey Pine for the Point.”