A spasm of pain contracted the old general's haggard face, but the question found him mute.
"Would it be too late?" she repeated.
"He would not desire it, Elizabeth," replied her father.
"But would it be too late?" and she rested a shaking hand on his arm.
"You must not ask me that—I don't know."
He tried to meet her glance, which seemed to read his very soul, then her hand dropped at her side and she took a step forward, her head bowed and her face averted.
Again came the thought of North's awful isolation; the thought of that lonely death where love and tenderness had no place; all the ghastly terror of that last moment when he was hurried from this living breathing world! It was a monstrous thing! A thing beyond belief—incredible, unspeakable!
"We can believe in his courage," said her father, "as certainly as we can believe in his innocence."
"Yes—" she gasped.
"That is something. And the day will surely come when the world will think as we think. The truth seems lost now, but not for always!"