But the President checked him gently,--
"You don't understand. It was something new to my experience here to
find an able-bodied American citizen with an honest genuine grievance
who had to have it drawn from him like a decayed tooth. But you have
been here before. I seem to remember your face."
Brant's reserve had gone. He admitted that he had twice sought an
audience--but--
"You dodged the dentist! That was wrong." As Brant made a slight
movement of deprecation the President continued: "I understand! Not from
fear of giving pain to yourself but to others. I don't know that THAT
is right, either. A certain amount of pain must be suffered in this
world--even by one's enemies. Well, I have looked into your case,
General Brant." He took up a piece of paper from his desk, scrawled with
two or three notes in pencil. "I think this is the way it stands. You
were commanding a position at Gray Oaks when information was received
by the department that, either through neglect or complicity, spies were
passing through your lines. There was no attempt to prove your neglect;
your orders, the facts of your personal care and precaution, were all
before the department. But it was also shown that your wife, from whom
you were only temporarily separated, was a notorious secessionist; that,
before the war, you yourself were suspected, and that, therefore, you
were quite capable of evading your own orders, which you may have
only given as a blind.
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