"To Camp Jackson?" asked Stephen.
Richter shrugged his shoulders.
"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?"