At length she was calmer, and withdrawing herself from his arms, said, "Send Lige to me."
As he was leaving the room she stopped him.
"Joe, dear," she said, "thee must not feel hardly toward thy father. He is not a fanatic. His belief in the wickedness and futility of war is as deep and strong as his belief in God. He could not change it now—even for thee."
When Joe left the room his heart felt ready to burst with pain. He knew that the call of his country was a sacred one. He felt in every fibre of his being that he was doing his plain duty as a man and an American. Yet the habit and training of years, the principles inculcated in him from babyhood, were not easily overcome. Even with a mind clear and positive upon his duty doubts and fears and questionings rose to torture him.
Blinded by the tears that would come in spite of all his efforts he walked toward the river.
So harassed and broken was he that he did not hear the murmur of voices in the little arbor they had built under the willow trees until he was very near it. Then he looked up suddenly, and stood still.
On the rough bench they had made on the river bank he saw Nina sitting, and Lige, with arms tightly clasped about her and his face close to hers, was gazing into her eyes.
He could not hear the words that were spoken, his heart was beating too loud and fast, but he saw that her arms were about his neck, that her face was wet with tears, and that her eyes gazed into his with a look of love and sorrow.
Up to this moment Joe had always thought of Nina as his sister. He knew that he had loved her devotedly from the first moment he had seen her; but it was only now, when the wild plunge of his heart, the wild fury in his breast, the hot, fierce current of blood that surged up to his brain brought the revelation to him, that he knew that the love he felt for her was not that of a brother.
For an instant a wild, mad rage against Lige filled him; made him want to strike him, to hurl him headlong from the arbor and down the bank of the river. Then the sense of fairness and justice that had always been a leading trait of his character asserted itself.