There is scarcely a single cause in which a woman is not engaged in
some way fomenting the suit.--_Juvenal_.


"Then you offer me no hope, Doctor?" The gray mane of Doctor Samuel Ward
waved like a fighting crest as he made answer:

"Not the sort of hope you ask." A moment later he added: "John, I am
ashamed of you."

The cynical smile of the man I called my chief still remained upon his
lips, the same drawn look of suffering still remained upon his gaunt
features; but in his blue eye I saw a glint which proved that the answer
of his old friend had struck out some unused spark of vitality from the
deep, cold flint of his heart.

"I never knew you for a coward, Calhoun," went on Doctor Ward, "nor any
of your family I give you now the benefit of my personal acquaintance
with this generation of the Calhouns. I ask something more of you than
faint-heartedness."

The keen eyes turned upon him again with the old flame of flint which a
generation had known--a generation, for the most part, of enemies. On my
chief's face I saw appear again the fighting flush, proof of his
hard-fibered nature, ever ready to rejoin with challenge when challenge
came.

"Did not Saul fall upon his own sword?" asked John Calhoun. "Have not
devoted leaders from the start of the world till now sometimes rid the
scene of the responsible figures in lost fights, the men on whom blame