blood? Oh, Bob,
can't you see?"

"It is never right to do wrong," said Bob. "Is it right to tell a lie
that truth may come? Is it right to tell a lie to save any one from
pain? Is it right to commit murder to save some one from an even
greater calamity? That's nothing but the old Jesuit doctrine of the
end justifying the means. But, Nancy, don't let's talk anything more
about it. I am tired, weary of it! You love me, I love you. Can't
you let me live my own life, carry out the projects I have in my mind,
and trust to Providence?"

"What right have we to trust in Providence," asked the girl
passionately, "when we stand by and do nothing? Suppose at the end of
this war we come off victorious, I suppose that you, who have never
lifted your finger to save your country, will think it your right to
enter into the benefits which others have won for you? That is your
idea of Christianity, I suppose?"

"But war cannot be right."

"I don't know about war in the abstract," cried the girl, "but I do
know that this war is. I am not a sophist, and I can't put into words
what is in my mind. I am only an ordinary girl; but, Bob"--she raised
her voice as she spoke--"if you can stand by while your country is in
danger, if you can turn a deaf ear to her call, if you refuse to help,
and go on working at your law books while other young men are fighting
for their country's honour and safety, then--then--don't you see? We
live in different worlds, we breathe different air, and--there is an
end to everything."

"Have we tried to understand the German position?" said Bob. "Germany
is a Christian country as much as England is; the German people are
what Thomas Carlyle calls them, a brave, quiet, patient people. Are we
right in attributing evil motives to them?"

"But do you not believe," cried Nancy, "that the Emperor and his
ministers planned all this?--that they depended upon the neutrality of
England, thinking we would stand by and see a little nation crushed?
Everything proves that their object and desire is to crush England, and
to dominate the world. You say you have read all about it. Surely you
do not believe that Germany is going to war to crush Servia because of
the assassination of an Austrian prince? You do not believe in that
flimsy pretext?"

"No," said Bob, "I can't say I do."

"And have you thought of this?" said the girl. "When this war was
declared, it was not at the time the Crown Prince was as