This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1896. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... XVI INTO SILENCE Gordon Counselman had all a soldier's idea of duty. He followed his own conscience, and permitted everybody else, even his wife, to do the same. Although he could not upon this occasion quite agree with Alice in her point of view, still he defended her against every one who blamed her for not going with her husband, as many people dared to do. He admired Alice's devotion to a forbidding duty, which she paid so unswervingly. He doubted if, in her place, he could have done it so promptly. A man with a conscience will sacrifice his head and his bodily comfort to his ideal of duty, but he clings tenaciously to his heart's desire, and yields that last, if at all. A woman with a conscience often makes a burnt-offering of her heart, from pure altruism. Men call such a woman either a saint, or--cold. To Alice's grief, she discovered that nearly everybody in Stockbridge, and, later, that even Miss Vandevoort herself, thought her entirely wrong in her course of action. Some gave her no quarter. The kindest only said that her conception of duty was ill considered. Her letters to Gordon's mother, hitherto so affectionate, became constrained and apologetic; and Mrs. Counselman's silence upon this one subject in her kind replies grieved Alice beyond measure--it was so eloquent a condemnation. It was part of Alice's inheritance, that in spite of all this she never thought of changing her mind and following Gordon to Fort Jefferson. When it became too much to bear, she overflowed in her letters to Gordon, and he assured her that no one was competent to judge so well as her dear self, and he upheld her so courageously that she believed he wholly approved her course--so much so that she began to think, and to say to others, that in remaining in Stockbridge ...