"Surely. But he won his first victories as a soldier fighting the French, under the British flag. He denounced that flag, joined with the French and forced Cornwallis to surrender to the armies of France and the Colonies of America. He was equally right when he fought under the British flag against the French, and when he fought with Lafayette and Rochambeau and won our independence. Each time he fought for his rights under law. Each time with mind and conscience clear, he answered the call of duty. The man who does that is always right, my sister, no matter what flag flies above him!"
"Oh, Robert, there is but one flag—the flag of Washington, and your father, Henry Lee—"
The brother broke in quickly.
"And yet, the first blood in this conflict was drawn by a man who cursed that flag, who again and again defied its authority, and gloried in the fact that he had trampled it beneath his feet. The North has proclaimed him a Saint. Their soldiers are now marching on the South singing a song of glory to John Brown and all for which he stood. What would Washington do if he were living, and these men were marching to invade Virginia, put his home at Mount Vernon to the torch, and place pikes in the hands of his slaves—"
Lee searched his sister's eyes and drove his question home.
"What would he do?"
The woman was too downright in her honesty to quibble or fence. She couldn't answer. She flushed and hesitated.
"I don't know—I don't know. I only know," she hastened to add, "that he couldn't be a traitor."
"Even so. Who is the traitor, my dear? The man who defies the Constitution and the laws of the Union? Or the man who defends the law and the rights of his fathers under it?"
Again she couldn't answer. She would not acknowledge defeat. She simply refused to face such a problem. It led the wrong way. With quick wit she changed her point of attack. She drew close and asked in passionate tenderness: