“No, no, I’m only telling you the pattern as I see it. You must do all in your power to prevent the pattern from being completed this time. Incidentally, there are other similarities in the two cases. I didn’t know Howard Carrothers well—he was never a student of mine, although I had seen him on campus—but I remember one of his professors telling me about how Howard had changed during the last few weeks of his life. He had been a good student, but he became surly and began to neglect his work. Also, his appearance changed. He became older looking and stronger and he turned into a troublemaker. He was accused of assaulting a truck driver here in Ashland and breaking the man’s jaw.”

“And you think that this boy and all those who committed suicide in the past were possessed in some way by the ghost—or spirit or whatever—of General Caine?” Father Jackson asked.

“I believe that for a time they may have become General Caine—or that they thought they had, which may be the same thing in the end.”

“No, it’s not the same thing at all,” said the priest. “Thinking it, I can accept.”

“I meant only in the consequences.”

“And now you believe that Duff becomes General Caine at times, or thinks he has?” I said.

Dr. Tully nodded. “How much do you know about the General’s life?” he asked as he sipped his tea.

“Not much, except what Duff has told me, that he was a Civil War hero.”

“That’s true. Apparently he contributed a lot at times to some Union victories, and at other times helped to lessen the consequences of Union defeats. However, he was also threatened with a court-­martial. Did Duff tell you that?”

“No.”

“He was. For what today we call war crimes. It seems he was in the habit of torturing and killing prisoners and also Southern civilians. He was warned several times about these activities, but apparently he was so good in the field that his superiors tended to overlook the other things—until he became too flagrant, or else some of his men started to complain. Then he was captured by the Confederates and the charges against him were dropped. You won’t find these things in history books, but I’ve read letters sent home by local boys in which some of the General’s nasty habits are described. One time during the battle of Murfreesboro he set fire to a barn in which a squad of Confederates was trapped. Then he ordered his men to shoot them as they ran from the barn trying to surrender. Another time he hanged a farmer and his two sons because they wouldn’t salute the Union flag. There were other similar episodes, some of them mentioned in a collection of letters here at the college.”