In the darkness he stood before Battle Monument,
on which are inscribed the names of the West Point graduates who
have fallen in battles.
"Will my name ever be there, or have any chance to be there?"
wondered Dick, a big lump rising in his throat.
A tear stood in either eye, but he brushed them aside as unworthy
of a soldier. Was he ever going to be a soldier, he wondered.
"I don't know that I'm really ready to be killed in battle," thought
Dick grimly. "It would be enough to know that my name is to be
on the roll of graduates of the Military Academy, and afterwards
on the rolls of the Army as an officer who had served with credit
wherever he had been placed. But the fates seem against even
that much. Hang it all, what was it that Lieutenant Denton said
about faith and right, and faith being as much the soldier's duty
as honor? I guess he was never placed in just such a fix as mine!"
For, slowly, all of Dick's iron-clad resolution to "stick it out"
was wearing away. It was becoming plainer to him, every day,
that he could not stay in the Army if he were always to live in
Coventry as far as his brother officers were concerned.
"I wonder what the fellows will do at the meeting next Monday
night?" Dick pondered, as he turned and strolled back by another
road. "If the fellows could only realize how unjust they are
without meaning to be! But I can't make them see that.
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