t?"

"I certainly was not feeling well."

"Were you too ill to go along with your company?"

"--and--there--was--some--work--in--camp that--needed--to--be--done--and
there was enough without me, and--I--I--"

"That is sufficient," said the elder man with a look of scorn that
presently changed into one of deeply wounded pride. "Henry, I know too
well your disposition to shirk the unpleasant duties of life, to be much
surprised that, when tried by this test, you were found wanting. But
this wounds me deeply. People in Sardis think my disposition hard and
exacting; they think I care for little except to get all that is due me.
But no man here can say that in all his long life Robert Glen shirked or
evaded a single duty that he owed to the community or his fellow-men,
no matter how dangerous or disagreeable that duty might be. To have you
fail in this respect and to take and maintain your place in the front
rank with other men is a terrible blow to my pride."

"O, Harry, is that you?" said his mother, coming into the room at that
moment and throwing herself into her son's arms. "I was lying down
when I heard your voice, and I dressed and hurried down as quickly as
possible. I am so glad that you have come home all safe and well. I know
that you'll contradict, for your poor mother's sake, all these horrible
stories that are worrying her almost to death."

"Unfortunately he has just admitted that those stories are substantially
true," said the father curtly.

"I won't believe it," sobbed his mother, "until he tells me so himself.
You didn't, did you, back out of a fight, and let that Bob Bennett,
whose mother used to be my sewing girl, and whom I supported for months
after he was born, and his father died with the cholera and left her
nothing, by giving her work and paying her cash, and who is now putting
on all sorts of airs because everybody's congratulating her on having
such a wonderful son, and nobody's congratulating me at all, and
sometimes I almost which I was dead."

Clearness of statement was never one of Mrs. Glen's salient
characteristics. Nor did deep emotion help her in this regard. Still
it was only too evident that the fountains of her being were moved by
having another woman's son exalted over her own. Her maternal pride and
social prestige were both quivering under the blow.

Harry met this with a flank movement.

"You both seem decidedly disappointed that I did not get myself wounded
or killed,"