“He insulted General Scott something terrible, Ehud said. Then he fell off his horse asleep, and they lugged him to the guard-house; and that’s the last Ehud was ever able to find out about him. They never courtmartialed the man or anything. Ehud said he guessed Brinton escaped in the night; the wicked old sot! What’s the matter, sir? Is the wound hurting you so bad?”
“Yes!” panted Dad. “But not the silly scratch on my arm. It is a thousand times deeper.”
“And you never told me!” she cried in genuine alarm. “Here I’ve been chatting so selfishly with you and never doing a thing to help you! Wait till I fetch you some brandy.”
“I—I don’t need it, thank you,” he replied, “and I never touch it any more. I’ve sworn I never will. The wound I spoke of is on my soul; not my body. I—”
“I thought all army men drank once in a while. Shall I get—”
“No, thank you. I’m all right again. I don’t know that the majority of army men drink. Though a drink is a consoler after a long day’s march, and it helps drown the memory of the comrade who was shot to pieces at one’s side. But it is a consolation that’s not for me. It consoled me too often—till nothing else worth while would trouble to console me.
“Mrs. Sessions, you have been very good to me. I haven’t the words to tell you how good; and—
“And because of that, as well as because no man could lie to eyes like yours, I wanted to tell you something. Something that may make you sorry you’ve done so much for a worthless old derelict. Something that will surely make you ashamed that you honored him with the offer of your husband’s sword. I—I am the James Brinton whose story Captain Sessions told you.”
“Land’s sake! You never are!”
“And the reason he heard no more of me was because I was ‘dismissed from the service I had degraded,’ and was secretly kicked out of the army. And because I was forever kicked out of it, I had to sneak back into the service under a false name.”