His patient, careful and friendly treatment of the Marylanders quickly proved its wisdom. A reaction in favor of the Union set in and the State remained loyal to the flag. The importance of this fact could not be exaggerated. Without Maryland, Washington could not have been held. And the moment the Capital should fall Europe would recognize the Confederacy.

The saving of Maryland for the Union, in fact, established Washington as the real seat of Government, though it was destined to remain for years but an armed fortress on the frontiers of a new Nation.

The stirring events at Sumter and Baltimore brought more than one family to the grief and horror of brother against brother and father against son.

John Vaughan stood in his room livid with rage confronting Ned on the first day that communication was opened with the outside world.

"You are not going to do this insane thing I tell you, Ned!"

The boyish figure stiffened:

"I am going home to Missouri on the first train out × of Washington, raise a company and fight for the South."

The older man's voice dropped to persuasive tones: "Isn't there something bigger than fighting for a section? Let's stand by the Nation!"

"That's just what I refuse to do. The United States have never been a Nation. This country is a Republic of Republics—not an Empire. The South is going to fight for the right of local self-government and the liberties our fathers won from the tyrants of the old world. The South is right eternally and for

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ever right. The States of this Union have always been sovereign."

“All right—all right," John growled impatiently, "granted, my boy. Still Secession is impossible. A Nation can't jump out of its own skin once it has grown it. This country has become a Nation. Steam and electricity have made it so. Railroads have bound us together in iron bands. Can't you see that?” "No, I can't. Right is right.”

"But if we have actually grown into a mighty united people with one tongue and one ideal is it right to draw the sword to destroy what God has joined together? Silently, swiftly, surely during the past thirty years we have become one people and the love ✰ of the Union has become a deathless passion

"You've had a poor way of showing it!" Ned sneered.

"Still, boy, it's true. I didn't realize it myself until that fort was fired on and the flag hauled down. And then it came to me in a blinding flash. Old Webster's voice has been hushed in death, but his soul lives in the hearts of our boys. There's hardly one of us who hasn't repeated at school his immortal words. They came back to me with thrilling power the day I read of that shot. They are ringing in my soul to-day—”

John paused and a rapt look crept into his eyes, as he began slowly to repeat the closing words of Webster's speech:

"When mine eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, be

ligerent; or a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, with fratricidal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gracious ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterward," but everywhere, spread all over with living light, blazing in all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment dear to every American heart-"Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable

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He paused, his voice choking with emotion, as he seized Ned's arm:

"O, Boy, Boy, isn't that a greater ideal? That's all the President is asking to-day-to stand by the Union

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"He is making war on the South!"

"But only as the South is forcing him reluctantly to defend the Union by force. The South is mad. She will come to her senses after the shock of the first skirmish is over. With the Southern members in their places, they have a majority in Congress against the President. He can move neither hand nor foot. What has the South to gain by Secession? They always controlled the Union and can continue to do so if they stand united with their Northern friends. In the end their defeat is as sure as that twenty millions of free white Americans can whip five

millions of equal courage and daring.

They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. It's madness-it surpasses belief!"

"That's why I'm going to fight for them!" Ned's answer flashed. "They stand for a principle-their equal rights under the Republic their fathers created. They haven't paused to figure on success or failure. Five million freemen have drawn the sword against twenty millions because their rights have been invaded. Might has never yet made right. The South's daring is sublime and, by God, I stand with them!"

His words had the ring of steel in their finality. The two men faced each other for a moment, tense, earnest, defiant.

The younger extended his hand:

"Good-bye, John."

The handsome face of the older brother went suddenly white and he shook his head:

"No. From to-day we are no longer brothers—we can't be friends!"

Ned smiled, waved his hand and from the door firmly answered:

"As you like from to-day-foes—"

He closed the door and with swift step turned his face toward the house of Senator Winter.

CHAPTER VII

LOVE AND DUTY

The pretty Irish maid nodded and smiled with such a sympathetic look as she ushered Ned into the cosy back parlor, he wondered if it meant anything. Could she have guessed Betty's secret? She might give him a hint that would lift the fear from his heart.

He smiled back into her laughing eyes and began awkwardly:

Somehow it wouldn't work. The words refused to come. Love was too big and sweet and sacred. It couldn't be hinted at to a third person. And so he merely stammered:

"Will you-er-please-tell Miss Betty I'm here?" "Yiss-sor!" Peggy giggled.

He was glad to be rid of her. He drew his handkerchief, mopped the perspiration from his brow and sat down by the open window to wait. His heart was pounding. He looked about the room with vague longing. He had spent many a swift hour of pain and joy in this room. The sight and sound of her had grown into his very life he couldn't realize how intimately and how hopelessly until this moment of parting perhaps forever.