"Refused?" John gasped.
"Yes."
The younger man gazed at the haggard face for a moment through dimmed eyes, sank slowly to a seat and covered his face in his hands in a cry of despair!
The reaction was complete and his collapse utter.
The President gazed at the bent figure with sorrowful amazement, and touched his head gently with the big friendly hand:
"Why, what's the matter, my boy? I'm the only man to despair. You're just a captain in the army. If to be the head of hell is as hard as what I've had to undergo here I could find it in my heart to pity Satan himself. And if there's a man out of hell who suffers more than I do, I pity him. But it's my burden and I try to bear it. I wish I had only yours!"
John Vaughan sprang to his feet and threw his hands above his head in a gesture of anguish:
"O my God, you don't understand!"
He quickly crossed the space that separated them and faced the President with grim determination:
"But I'm going to tell you the truth now and you can do what you think's right. In the last fight before Petersburg I killed my brother in a night attack and held his dying body in my arms. I think I must have gone mad that night. Anyhow, when I lay in the hospital recovering from my wounds, I got the letter about my father and made up my mind to kill you——"