It was in the early fall of 1918, more than a year later, that
Hardman came once more into the familiar library at Calvinton. He
had read the casualty list of the last week of August and came to
condole with his friend De Vries.

The old man sat in the twilight of the tranquil book-lined room,
leaning back in his armchair, with an open letter on the table
before him. He gave his hand cordially to Hardman and thanked him
for his sympathetic words. He talked quietly and naturally about
Dick, and confessed how much he should miss the boy--as it were,
his only son.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I am going to be lonely, but I am not
forsaken. I shall be sad sometimes, but never sorry--always proud
of my boy. Would you like to see this letter? It is the last that
he wrote."

It was a young, simple letter, full of cheerful joking and personal
details and words of affection which the shy lad would never have
spoken face to face. At the end he wrote:

"Well, dear Governor, this is a rough life, and some parts are
not easy to bear. But I want you to know that I was never happier
in all my days. I know that we are fighting for a good cause,
justice, and freedom, and a world made clean from this beastly
German militarism. The things that the Germans have done to France
and Belgium must be stopped, and they must never be done again.