“Simply because it is our duty.”
“But why can’t we wait till we’re on our way back?”
“It would be too late then.”
“But I say, Larry,” interposed Dick, “do you really think we are under so imperative an obligation as that?”
“To do one’s duty is always an imperative obligation. We are all of us the sons of gentlemen. We have been trained to think—and truly so—that a gentleman must do his duty regardless of consequences to himself. So we are going to start for Beaufort at daylight, no matter what annoyances it may bring upon us.”
“Of course you are right,” said Dick and Tom in a breath. Cal said nothing until one of them asked him why he remained silent.
“I’m a Rutledge,” he answered, “and what Larry has said is the gospel in which I have been bred. I hadn’t thought it out till Larry spoke, that’s all.”
“Neither had I,” said Dick.
“Nor I,” said Tom. “Of course we’ve all been bred in the same creed, and I for one shall never again wait to be reminded of it when a duty presents itself.”