rs were so cold and deathlike that their pressure seemed to close
about his heart, compressing it, and chilling the life current in his
veins.

"I knew that you would come, Harold. Although I read that you were
missing at the close of that dreadful battle, something told me that we
should meet again. Whether it was a sick man's fancy, or the foresight
of a parting soul, it is realized, for you are here. And you come not
too soon, Harold," he added, with a pressure of the feeble hand, "for I
am going fast--fast from the discords of earth--fast to the calm and
harmony beyond."

"Oh, Arthur, how changed you are!" said Harold, who could not keep from
fastening his gaze on the white, sunken cheek and hollow eyes of his
dying comrade. "But you will get better now, will you not--now that you
are home again, and we can nurse you?"

Arthur shook his head with a mournful smile, and the fit of painful
coughing which overtook him answered his friend's vain hope.

"No, Harold, no. All of earth is past to me, even hope. And I am ready,
cheerful even, to go, except for the sake of some loved ones that will
sorrow for me."

He took his mother's hand as he spoke, and looked at her with touching
tenderness, while the poor dame brushed away her tears.

"I have but a brief while to stay behind," she said, "and my sorrow will
be less, to know that you have ever been a good son to me. Oh, Mr. Hare,
he might have lived to comfort me, and close my old eyes in death, if
they had not been so cruel with him, and locked him within prison
walls. He, who never dreamed of wrong, and never injured willingly a
worm in his path."

"Nay, mother, they were not unkind to me in the fort, and did what they
could to make me comfortable. But, Harold, it is wrong. I have thought
of it in the long, weary nights in prison, and I have thought of it when
I knew that death was beckoning me to come and rest from the thoughts of
earth. It is wrong to tamper with the sacred law that shields the
citizen. I believe that many a man within those fortress walls is as
innocent in the eyes of God as those who sent him there. Yet I accuse
none of willful wrong, but only of unconscious error. If the sacrifice
of my poor life could shed one ray upon the darkness, I would rejoice to
be the victim that I am, of a violated right. But all, statesmen, and
chieftains, and humble citizens, are being swept along upon the
whirlwinds of passion; all hearts are ablaze with the fier