Mr. Lavender stared at him, greatly perturbed.

“How unjustly I judged him,” he thought; and seeing that the maid had placed the end of a ham before him he began carving off what little there was left on it, and, filling a plate, placed it before the young man.  The latter thanked him, and without looking up ate rapidly on.  Mr. Lavender watched him with beaming eyes.  “It’s lovely to see him!” he thought; “poor fellow!”

“Where are the eggs?” said the young man suddenly.

Mr. Lavender got up and rang the bell.

“Please bring those eggs for him,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” said the maid.  “And what are you going to have?  There’s nothing in the house now.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Lavender, startled.  “A cup of coffee and a slice of bread, thank you.  I can always eat at any time.”

The maid went away muttering to herself, and bringing the eggs, plumped them down before the young man, who ate them more hastily than words could tell.

“I mean,” he said, “to do all I can in this fort-night to build up my strength.  I shall eat almost continuously.  They shall never break me.”  And, reaching out, he took the remainder of the loaf.

Mr. Lavender watched it disappear with a certain irritation which he subdued at once.  “How selfish of me,” he thought, “even to think of eating while this young hero is still hungry.”

“Are you, then,” he said, “the victim of some religious or political plot?”

“Both,” replied the young man, leaning back with a sigh of repletion, and wiping his mouth.  “I was released to-day, and, as I said, I shall be court-martialled again to-day fortnight.  It’ll be two years this time.  But they can’t break me.”

Mr. Lavender gasped, for at the word “courtmartialled” a dreadful doubt had assailed him.

“Are you,” he stammered—­“you are not—­you cannot be a Conscientious Objector?”

“I can,” said the young man.

Mr. Lavender half rose in horror.

“I don’t approve,” he ejaculated; “I do not approve of you.”

“Of course not,” said the young man with a little smile at once proud and sad, “who does?  If you did I shouldn’t have to eat like this, nor should I have the consciousness of spiritual loneliness to sustain me.  You look on me as a moral outcast, as a leper.  That is my comfort and my strength.  For though I have a genuine abhorrence of war, I know full well that I could not stick this if it were not for the feeling that I must not and will not lower myself to the level of mere opportunists like you, and sink myself in the herd of men in the street.”

At hearing himself thus described Mr. Lavender flushed.

“I yield to no one,” he said, “in my admiration of principle.  It is because of my principles that I regard you as a——­”

“Shirker,” put in the young man calmly.  “Go on; don’t mince words; we’re used to them.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lavender, kindling, “a shirker.  Excuse me!  A renegade from the camp of Liberty, a deserter from the ranks of Humanity, if you will pardon me.”