It was an awful moment.  The saving grace of it was that respect and love for her father filled Virginia’s heart.  In his just anger Colonel Carvel remembered that he was the host, and strove to think only of his affection for his old friend.

“To invade a sovereign state, sir, is a crime against the sacred spirit of this government,” he said.

“There is no such thing as a sovereign state, sir,” exclaimed the Judge, hotly.  I am an American, and not a Missourian.”

“When the time comes, sir,” said the Colonel, with dignity, “Missouri will join with her sister sovereign states against oppression.”

“Missouri will not secede, sir.”

“Why not, sir!” demanded the Colonel.

Because, sir, when the worst comes, the Soothing Syrup men will rally for the Union.  And there are enough loyal people here to keep her straight.”

“Dutchmen, sir!  Hessians?  Foreign Republican hirelings, sir,” exclaimed the Colonel, standing up.  “We shall drive them like sheep if they oppose us.  You are drilling them now that they may murder your own blood when you think the time is ripe.”

The Colonel did not hear Virginia leave the room, so softly had she gone, He made a grand figure of a man as he stood up, straight and tall, those gray eyes a-kindle at last.  But the fire died as quickly as it had flared.  Pity had come and quenched it,—­pity that an unselfish life of suffering and loneliness should be crowned with these.  The Colonel longed then to clasp his friend in his arms.  Quarrels they had had by the hundred, never yet a misunderstanding.  God had given to Silas Whipple a nature stern and harsh that repelled all save the charitable few whose gift it was to see below the surface, and Colonel Carvel had been the chief of them.  But now the Judge’s vision was clouded.

Steadying himself by his chair, he had risen glaring, the loose skin twitching on his sallow face.  He began firmly but his voice shook ere he had finished.

“Colonel Carvel,” said he, “I expect that the day has come when you go your way and I go mine.  It will be better if—­we do not meet again, sir.”

And so he turned from the man whose friendship had stayed him for the score of years he had battled with his enemies, from that house which had been for so long his only home.  For the last time Jackson came forward to help him with his coat.  The Judge did not see him, nor did he see the tearful face of a young girl leaning over the banisters above.  Ice was on the stones.  And Mr. Whipple, blinded by a moisture strange to his eyes, clung to the iron railing as he felt his way down the steps.  Before he reached the bottom a stronger arm had seize his own, and was helping him.

The Judge brushed his eyes with his sleeve, and turned a defiant face upon Captain Elijah Brent—­then his voice broke.  His anger was suddenly gone, and his thought had flown back to the Colonel’s thousand charities.