Coming up at last, Gaunt listened sullenly, while the other spoke in a quiet, hearty fashion.
"They tell me you are to be one of us to-night," Palmer said, cordially. "Dyke showed me your name on the enlistment-roll: your motto after it, was it? 'For God and my right.' That's the gist of the whole matter, David, I think, eh?"
"Yes, I'm right. I think I am. God knows I do!"—his vague eyes wandering off, playing with the horse's mane uncertainly.
Palmer read his face keenly.
"Of course you are," he said, speaking gently as he would to a woman. "I'll find a place and work for you before morning."
"So soon, Palmer?"
"Don't look at the blood and foulness of the war, boy! Keep the cause in view, every moment. We secure the right of self-government for all ages: think of that! 'God,'—His cause, you know?—and 'your right,' Haven't you warrant to take life to defend your right—from the Christ you believe in? Eh?"
"No. But I know"—Gaunt held his hand to his forehead as if it ached—"we have to come to brute force at last to conquer the right. Christianity is not enough. I've reasoned it over, and"—
"Yet you look troubled. Well, we'll talk it over again. You've worked your brain too hard to be clear about anything just now,"—looking down on him with the questioning pity of a surgeon examining a cancer. "I must go on now, David. I'll meet you at the church in an hour."
"You are going to the house, Palmer?"