headed in the moonlight.

"Father!" cried the young man, springing forward with outstretched
hand--"Father!"

The elder man looked him sternly in the face, stood a moment
motionless and without a word withdrew into the house. Bitterly
disappointed, humiliated, inexpressibly hurt and altogether
unnerved, the soldier dropped upon a rustic seat in deep dejection,
supporting his head upon his trembling hand. But he would not have
it so: he was too good a soldier to accept repulse as defeat. He
rose and entered the house, passing directly to the "sitting-room."

It was dimly lighted by an uncurtained east window. On a low stool
by the hearthside, the only article of furniture in the place, sat
his mother, staring into a fireplace strewn with blackened embers
and cold ashes. He spoke to her--tenderly, interrogatively, and
with hesitation, but she neither answered, nor moved, nor seemed in
any way surprised. True, there had been time for her husband to
apprise her of their guilty son's return. He moved nearer and was
about to lay his hand upon her arm, when his sister entered from an
adjoining room, looked him full in the face, passed him without a
sign of recognition and left the room by a door that was partly
behind him. He had turned his head to watch her, but when she was
gone his eyes again sought his mother. She too had left the place.

Barr Lassiter strode to the door by which he had entered. The
moonlight on the lawn was tremulous, as if the sward were a rippling
sea. The trees and their black shadows shook as in a breeze.
Blended with its borders, the gravel walk seemed unsteady and