She broke down in a flood of bitter tears. The father took her into his arms and soothed her with tender words. But something deep and strange had stirred in the mother heart within her.
She drew away from his arms and cried in anguish.
"It's wrong. It's wrong. It's all wrong—this feud of blood! And God will yet save the world from it. I must believe that or I'd go mad!"
The two men looked at each other in wonder for a moment and then at the mother's convulsed face. Into the older man's features slowly crept a look of awe, as if he had heard that voice before somewhere in the still hours of his soul.
Stuart bent and kissed her tenderly.
"There, dear, you're overwrought. Don't worry. Your work God has given you in these cradles."
"Yes, that's why I feel this way," she whispered on his breast.
CHAPTER XXXVII
If reason had ruled, the Gulf States of the South would never have ordered their representatives to leave Washington on the election of Abraham Lincoln. The new administration could have done nothing with the Congress chosen. The President had been elected on a fluke because of the division of the opposition into three tickets. Lincoln was a minority President and was powerless except in the use of the veto.
If the Gulf States had paused for a moment they could have seen that such an administration, whatever its views about Slavery, would have failed, and the next election would have been theirs. The moment they withdrew their members of Congress, however, the new party had a majority and could shape the nation's laws.