"You hate this masquerade—this battle name I've chosen. Forget this, dear, and see the vision your God has given to me. You've prayed that I might be His minister. And so I am—and so I shall be when danger calls; you dislike this repulsive mission on which I'm entering. Just now it's the one and only thing a brave man can do for his country. Forget that I'm a spy and remember that I'm fitted for a divine service. I speak two languages beside my own. Our people don't study languages. Few men of my culture and endowment will do this dangerous and disagreeable work. I rise on wings at the thought of it!"
The mother's spirit caught at last the divine spark from the soul of the young enthusiast. Her eyes were wide and shining without tears when she slipped both arms about his neck and spoke with deep tenderness.
"You have fully counted the cost, my son?"
"Yes."
"The lying, the cheating, the false pretenses, the assumed name, the trusting hearts you must betray, the men you must kill alone, sometimes to save your own life and serve your country's?"
"It's war, mater dear. I hate its cruelty and its wrongs. I'll do my best in these early days to make it impossible. But if it comes, I'll play the game with my life in my hands, and if I had a hundred lives I'd give them all to my country—my only regret is that I have but one—"
"How strange the ways of God!" the mother broke in. "He planted this love in your soul. He taught it to me and I to you and now it ends in darkness and blood and death—"
"But out of it, dear, must come the greater plan. You believe in God—you must believe this, or else the Devil rules the universe, and there is no God."
The mother drew the young lips down and kissed them tenderly.
"God's will be done, my Boy—it's the bitterness of death to me—but I say it!"