“Here it is,” said Lawrence, taking a small, thin gold ring from his little finger.  “When my mother married your father, I was fourteen years old.  She gave me the wedding ring my father had given her; she put it on my finger and it has never been removed since—­but I will take it off to show to you.”

Lawrence pulled the ring off and Broussard, under the glare of the electric lamp, read the initials and the date he had seen in the family record.  Then, handing the ring back, Broussard studied Lawrence’s haggard face.  Lawrence, answering the unspoken words, said: 

“I was always thought like my mother, and the boy is the image of her.”

A sudden illumination flooded Broussard’s mind with light.  He recalled the child’s face, frank and handsome—­a face that had always appealed to him so strongly, and so strangely.  Yes, it was the call of the blood, and instantly the mysterious attraction the boy had for him developed into the affection of a kinsman.

“If you could see my wife and talk with her,” continued Lawrence, recovering himself a little.  “I can’t urge her to leave me, but I think in common justice to her somebody ought to put the thing before her.”

“Certainly,” replied Broussard.

He was turning things rapidly in his mind.  It would never do, after the Colonel’s warning, to go to Lawrence’s quarters, and he said so.

“It would look as if I had called for a farewell visit to your wife, when I haven’t time to pay any calls except to the C. O.,” said Broussard, after a moment.  “But I will see the Colonel in the morning and try to arrange, through him, an interview with your wife.”

“But don’t, for God’s sake, tell who I am,” cried Lawrence.  “Don’t tell it, for the sake of our mother’s memory.  It isn’t necessary.”

“No, it is not necessary,” replied Broussard.  He was full of brotherly pity for Lawrence, his respect and sympathy for Mrs. Lawrence suddenly changed into the love of a brother for a sister, and the little boy became dear to him in the twinkling of an eye.

A silence fell between the two men, which was broken by Broussard.

“Couldn’t you get a discharge from the army?”

“No,” answered Lawrence, “there are too many black marks against me—­not enough to turn me out, but enough to keep me in.  However, I’ve kept soberer and acted straighter since I’ve been an enlisted man than for a long time past; the non-coms. know how to handle men like me.  And I’m a good aviator, and they want to keep me.”

“At all events,” said Broussard, taking Lawrence’s hand, “I’ll look out for your wife and child.  The boy shall have his chance—­he shall have his chance, the jolly little chap!”

Then, standing up, the two men embraced as brothers do, and felt their mother’s tender spirit hovering over them.

The next morning, while Colonel Fortescue was at breakfast, a note was handed to him by Broussard’s soldier attendant.  It read: