Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/149

 no pleasure-ground, but a grim war-station, fell to fencing with each other one day for lack of other pastime. The contest, begun in sport, waxed earnest, and finally angry; and when the sun that had seen the six companions in friendly intercourse sank to its grave, it looked upon six ghastly corpses lying on the spot now marked by as many memorial trees.

"Let us come away," cried Margaret, as Feuardent, in a low voice not untouched with awe, finished his narrative. "I will not stay in such an unhallowed place. Why did you bring me here? Why did you tell me this dreadful story? What have you or I to do with murder and death?"

"Who can escape contact with death?" answered Feuardent gloomily. "And why should you shrink from hearing such a story merely because you are a woman? Is it not for you women that these things are done? Strife comes with you wherever you go, and men who have been as brothers become murderers, in deed or in thought, for your sakes. You may not hear a rough word, you grow sick at the sight of blood; and yet the blackest crimes that the heart of man conceives of are committed through your influence, for your sake."

"Is it for women that these things are done, or for the selfish desires of men that are centred