r you are still a boy when you stand
beside my gray hairs--men may fight one another for a great principle
without being personal enemies. We are men still, with common hopes,
fears, ills, griefs and joys. When I was a soldier I fought the
Southern army, shot and shot to kill. I was fighting for a principle.
When the firing ceased I helped the wounded men on the field as I came
to them. Many a wounded man in blue I've seen drag himself over the
rough ground to pass his canteen to the lips of a boy in gray who was
lying on his back, crying for water. If I am your enemy, it is over a
question of principle. The fight has ended, and I have fallen across
your path to-night, dying of thirst while rivers of water flow about
me."

Bivens turned away and the doctor pressed closer.

"Suppose we have fought each other in the heat of the day in the ranks
of two hostile armies? The battle has ceased. For me the night has
fallen, I----"

His voice quivered and broke for an instant.

"You have won. You can afford to be generous. That you can deny me in
this the hour of my desolation is unthinkable. I'm not pleading for
myself. I can live on a rat's allowance. I'm begging for my little
girl. I need two thousand dollars immediately to complete her musical
studies. You know what her love means to me. I have put myself in your
power. Suppose I've wronged you? Now is your chance to do a divine
thing. Deep down in your heart of hearts you know that the act would be
one of justice between man and man."

Bivens looked up sharply.

"As a charity, Woodman, I might give you the paltry fifty thousand
dollars you ask."--

"I'll take it as a charity!" he cried eagerly, "take it with joy and
gratitude, and thank God for his salvation sent in the hour of my
need."

Bivens smiled coldly.

"But in reality you demand justice of me?"

"I have put myself in your power. I have refused and still refuse to
believe that you can treat me with such bitter cruelty as to refuse to
recognize my claim. I have waked at last to find myself helpless. The
shock of it has crushed me. I've always felt rich in the love of my
country, in the consciousness that I did my part to save the Union. Its
growing wealth I have rejoiced in as my own. There has never been a
moment in my life up to this hour that I have envied any man the
possession of his millions. In the fight I have made on you, I have
been trying to strike for the freedom of the individual man agains