“It is hardly for me to advise in a case so grave as that,” said Carlisle.  “I should not undertake it.  Have you really considered?”

“I have often followed over the same old course of reasoning, South against North,” she said, smiling at him.  “Come now, a revolutionist and two abolitionists should do much.  You still can fight, though they have taken away your sword.”

“Some say that the courts will settle these mooted points,” Carlisle went on; “others, that Congress must do so.  Yet others are unwilling that even the courts should take it up, and insist that the Constitution is clear and explicit already.  These Southerners say that Congress should make an end to it, by specifically declaring that men have a right to take into any new country what they lawfully own—­that is to say, these slaves; because that territory was bought in common by North and South.  The South is just as honest and sincere as the North is, and to be fair about it, I don’t believe it’s right to claim that the South wants the Union destroyed.  A few hotheads talk of that in South Carolina, in Mississippi, but that is precisely what the sober judgment of the South doesn’t desire.  Let us match those secessionists against the abolitionists,” he grinned.  “The first think they have law back of them.  The latter know they have none!”

“No,” she said, “only the higher law, that of human democracy.  No,—­we’ve nothing concrete—­except Lily!”

“Yes, but let me argue you out of this, Countess.  Really, I can see no just reason why the proud and prosperous North should wish to destroy the proud and prosperous South.  If the South remains in the Union it must be considered a part of the Union.  New England did not believe in taxation without representation.  Ought it to enforce that doctrine on the South?”

“You argue it very well, Sir, as well as any one can.  The only trouble is that you are not convinced, and you do not convince.  You are trying to protect me, that’s all.  I have no answer—­except Lily!  There are some things in the analysis from which you shrink.  Isn’t it true?”

“Yes, altogether true.  We always come back to the bitter and brutal part of slavery.  But what are we going to do for remedy?  Anarchy doesn’t suggest remedy.  For my own part, sometimes I think that Millard Fillmore’s idea was right—­that the government should buy these slaves and deport them.  That would be, as you say, far cheaper than a war.  It was the North that originally sold most of the slaves.  If they, the South, as half the country, are willing to pay back their half of the purchase price, ought not the North to be satisfied with that?  That’s putting principles to the hardest test—­that of the pocket.”

In his excitement he rose and strode about the room, his face frowning, his slender figure erect, martial even in its civilian dress.  Presently he turned; “But it is noble of you, magnificent, to think of doing what a government hesitates to do!  And a woman!”