“We are not consulted, my friend,” he said. “Will you come into my quarters and have a bottle of beer with Tiefel?”
Stephen went. It was not their fault that his sense at their comradeship was gone. To him it was as if the ties that had bound him to them were asunder, and he was become an outcast.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE STONE THAT IS REJECTED
That Friday morning Stephen awoke betimes with a sense that something was to happen. For a few moments he lay still in the half comprehension which comes after sleep when suddenly he remembered yesterday's incidents at the Arsenal, and leaped out of bed.
“I think that Lyon is going to attack Camp Jackson to-day,” he said to his mother after breakfast, when Hester had left the room.
Mrs. Brice dropped her knitting in her lap.
“Why, Stephen?”
“I went down to the Arsenal with the Judge yesterday and saw them finishing the equipment of the new regiments. Something was in the wind. Any one could see that from the way Lyon was flying about. I think he must have proof that the Camp Jackson people have received supplies from the South.”
Mrs. Brice looked fixedly at her son, and then smiled in spite of the apprehension she felt.