“I know.”

“And I. Both feeling and knowing this, who so fit to yield and to do for such a cause?  If those who see do not advance, the blind will never walk.”

Silence for a space again fell between them.  Francesca moved in his arm.

“Dearie.”  She looked up.  “I want to do no half service.  I go into this heart and soul, but I do not wish to go alone.  It will be so much to me to know that you are quite willing, and bade me go.  Think what it is.”

She did.  For an instant all sacrifices appeared easy, all burdens light.  She could send him out to death unfaltering.  One of those sublime moods in which martyrdom seems glorious filled and possessed her.  She took away her clinging arms from his neck, and said, “Go,—­whether it be for life or for death; whether you come back to me or go up to God; I am willing—­glad—­to yield you to such a cause.”

It was finished.  There was nothing more to be said.  Both had climbed the mount of sacrifice, and sat still with God.

After a while the cool gray dawn stole into their room.  The night had passed in this communion, and another day come.

There were many “last things” which claimed Surrey’s attention; and he, wishing to get through them early so as to have the afternoon and evening undisturbed with Francesca, plunged into a stinging bath to refresh him for the day, breakfasted, and was gone.

He attended to his business, came across many an old acquaintance and friend, some of whom greeted him coldly; a few cut him dead; whilst others put out their hands with cordial frankness, and one or two congratulated him heartily upon his new condition and happiness.  These last gave him fresh courage for the task which he had set himself.  If friends regarded the matter thus, surely they—­his father and mother—­would relent, when he came to say what might be a final adieu.

He ran up the steps, rang the bell, and, speaking a pleasant word to the old servant, went directly to his mother’s room.  His father had not yet gone down town; thus he found them together.  They started at seeing him, and his mother, forgetting for the instant all her pride, chagrin, and anger, had her arms about his neck, with the cry, “O Willie, Willie,” which came from the depths of her heart; then seeing her husband’s face, and recovering herself, sat down cold and still.

It was a painful interview.  He could not leave without seeing them once more; he longed for a loving good by; but after that first outburst he almost wished he had not forced the meeting.  He did not speak of his wife, nor did they; but a barrier as of adamant was raised between them, and he felt as though congealing in the breath of an iceberg.  At length he rose to go.

“Father!” he said then, “perhaps you will care to know that I do not return to my old command, but have been commissioned to raise a brigade from the freedmen.”

Both father and mother knew the awful peril of this service, and both cried, half in suffering, half in anger, “This is your wife’s work!” while his father added, with a passionate exclamation, “It is right, quite right, that you should identify yourself with her people.  Well, go your way.  You have made your bed; lie in it.”