It was a new business for Gaston, but he did his best to please her, in

a pathetic half-hearted sort of way. He ran all sorts of errands, and

executed her orders with tact.

“Oh! Sallie let the ball go. I don’t care for it. I can do nothing to

ever repay you for the good time I’ve been having,” said Helen as they

sat in her room one night.

“We are going to have it, I tell you. I don’t care how much Mr. Gaston

sulks. I’m not taking orders from him.”

“No, but you’d like to--you know it.”

“What an idea!”

“You know you like him better than all the others put together.”

“Nonsense. I’m as free as a bird.”

“Then what are you blushing for?”

“I’m not.” But her face was scarlet.

“You Southern girls are so queer. The moment you like a man you’re as

sly as a cat, and deny that you even know him. When I find the man I

love I don’t care who knows it, if he loves me.”

“What do you think of Bob St. Clare?”

“I like him.”

“Hasn’t he made love to you yet?”

“No, and the only one of the crowd who hasn’t. I don’t mind confessing

that I never had love made to me before this visit. In Boston it’s a

serious thing for a young man to call once. The second call, means

a family council, and at the third he must make a declaration of his

intentions or face consequences. Down here, the boys don’t seem to have

anything to do except to make their girl friends happy, and feel they

are the queens of the earth, and that their only mission is to minister

to them. And some of your girls are engaged to six boys at the same

time.”

“Don’t you like it?”

“It’s glorious. I feel that if I hadn’t come down here to see you I’d

have missed the meaning of life.”

“Don’t our boys make love beautifully?”

“I never dreamed of anything like it. They make it so seriously, so dead

in earnest, you can’t help believing them.”

“And Bob hasn’t said a word?”

“Hasn’t breathed a hint.”

“Then you have him sure. They are hit hard when they are silent like

that. Bob made love to me the second day he ever saw me.”

“Don’t tease me, dear,” said Helen as she put her pretty rosy cheek

against the dark beauty of the South. “Do you really think he likes me

seriously?”

“He’s crazy about you, goose!”

There was the sound of a kiss.

“I can’t tell stories about it like you, Sallie, I’m afraid I’m in love

with him,” she whispered.

“Well, I ’ll make him court you to-morrow or have him thrashed, if you

say so.”

“Don’t you dare!”

“Then do just as I tell you about this ball and get yourself up

regardless.”

On the night of the ball, Gaston, sitting out on the porch, felt nervous

and fidgety, like a fish out of water. He knew he had no business there,

and yet he couldn’t go away. They had a quarrel about the ball. Sallie

had insisted that Gaston honour her by coming in evening dress whether

he danced or not.

“But, Miss Sallie, I ’ll feel like a fool. Everybody in the country

knows that I never entered a ball-room.”

“Do you care so much what everybody thinks about you?”

“No, but I care what I think of myself.”

“Well, if you don’t come in full dress suit, I won’t speak to you.”

He turned pale in spite of his effort at self control. Then a queer

steel-like look came into his eyes.

“I shall be more than sorry to fail to please you, but I have no dress

suit. I have never had time for social frivolities. I can’t afford to

buy one for this occasion. I couldn’t be nigger enough to hire one, so

that’s the end of it. I ’ll have to come dressed in my own fashion or

stay at home.”

“Then you can stay at home,” she snapped.

“I ’ll not do it,” he coolly replied.

“Well, I like your insolence.”

“I’m glad you do. I ’ll come as I come to all such functions, an

outsider. I ’ll sit out here on the porch in the shadows and see it

from afar. If I could only dance, I assure you I’d try to fill every

number of your card. Not being able to do so, I simply decline to make a

fool of myself.”

“For that compliment, I ’ll compromise with you. Wear that big pompous

Prince Albert suit you spoke in at Independence, and I ’ll come out on

the porch and chat with you a while.”

He sat there now in the shadows waiting for this ball to begin. It was

a clear night the first week in June. The new moon was hanging just over

the tree tops. His heart was full to bursting with the thought that the

girl he loved would, in a few minutes, be whirling over that polished

floor to the strains of a waltz, with another man’s arm around her. He

never knew how deeply he hated dancing before--that rhythmic touch

of the human body, set to the melody of motion, and voiced in the

passionate cry of music. He felt its challenge to his love to mortal

combat,--his love that claimed this one woman as his own, body and soul!

The music from the Italian band was in full swing, its plaintive notes

instinct with the passion of sunny Italy, a music all Southern people

love.

He felt that he should choke. A sudden thought came to him. Tearing a

sheet of paper from a note book he scrawled this line upon it.

“Dear Miss Sallie:--Please let me see you a moment in the parlour before

you enter the ball-room. Gaston.”

At least he would see her in her ball costume first. Yes, and if she

should hate him for it, he would beg her not to dance that night. He saw

McLeod, bowing and scraping in the ball-room arrayed in faultless full

dress, and glancing toward the door. He knew lie was waiting for her to

ask her to dance. How he would like to wring his handsome neck!

The boy returned immediately and said the lady was waiting in the

parlour. He entered with a sense of fear and confusion.

[Illustration: 0278]

She came to him with her bare arm extended, a dazzling vision of

beauty. She was dressed in a creamy white crêpe ball gown, cut modestly

decollete over her full bust and gleaming shoulders, sleeveless, and

held with tiny straps across the curve of the upper arm.

He was stunned. She smiled in triumph, conscious of her resistless

power.

“Forgive me for my selfishness in keeping you here just a moment from

the rest. I wished to see you first.”

“What? to inspect like Mama, to see if I look all right?”

“No, with a mad desire to keep you as long as possible from the others.”

Then she looked up at him and said slowly and softly, “Would it please

you very much if I were not to dance to-night?”

“I wouldn’t dare ask so selfish a thing of you. It is with you a simple

habit of polite society, and you enjoy it as a child does play. I

understand that, and yet if you do not dance to-night, I feel as though

I would crawl round this world on my hands and knees for you if you

would ask it. There are men waiting for you in that ball room whom I

hate.”

She looked at him timidly as though she were afraid he was about to

say too much and replied, “Then I will not dance to-night. I ’ll just

preside over the ball and let Helen be the queen.”

“Words have no power to convey my gratitude. I count all my little

triumphs in life nothing to this. You promised to join me on the porch.

Don’t change that part of the programme. I will talk to your mother

until you come.”

Gaston went down stairs treading on air. He sought her mother and

devoted himself to her with supreme tact. He discovered her tastes and

prejudices and paid her that knightly deference some young men express

easily and naturally to their elders. He had always been a favourite

with old people. He prided himself on it. This faculty he regarded as

a badge of honour. As he sat there and talked with this frail little

woman, his heart went out to her in a great yearning love. She was the

mother of the bride of his soul. He would love her forever for that. No

matter whether she loved him or hated him. He would love the mother who

gave to his thirsty lips the water of Life.

Drawn irresistibly by the magnetism of his mind and manner Mrs. Worth

forgot the flight of time and thought but a moment had past when an hour

after the ball had opened, Sallie came out leaning on McLeod’s arm.

“Mama, have you been monopolising Mr. Gaston for a whole hour?”

“He hasn’t been here a half hour, Miss!” cried her mother.

“He’s been here an hour and ten minutes. I’m going to tell Papa on you

just as soon as I get home.”

“Go back to your dancing.”

“No, thank you, I have an engagement to take a walk with your beau. Come

Mr. Gaston.”

They walked to the spring and along the winding path by the brook at

the foot of the hill, and found a rustic seat. They were both silent for

several moments.

“I saw you were charming Mama, or I would have come sooner.”

“I hope she likes me.”

“She has been praising you ever since your visit to Independence. I

never saw her talk so long to a young man in my life before. You must

have hypnotised her.”

“I hope so.”

A strange happiness filled her heart. She was afraid to look it in the

face; and yet she dared to play with the thought.

“Are you enjoying your triumph to-night? I’ve had war inside.”

“I feel like I am the Emperor of the World and that the Evening Star is

smiling on my court!”

She smiled, tossed her head, leaned against the tree and said, “I wonder

if you are in the habit of saying things like that to girls?”

“Upon my soul and honour, no.”

“Then thanks. I ’ll dream about that, maybe.”

They returned to the hotel and McLeod claimed her. They went back the

same walk, and by a freak of fate he chose the same seat she had just

vacated with Gaston.

“Miss Sallie, you are of age now. You know that I have loved you

passionately since you were a child. I have made my way in life, I am

hungry for a home and your love to glorify it. Why will you keep me

waiting?”

“Simply because I know now I do not love you, Allan, and I never will.

Once and forever, here, to-night I give you my last answer, I will not

be your wife.”

“Then don’t give the answer to-night. I can wait,” he interrupted. “I

am just on the threshold of a great career. Success is sure. I can offer

you a dazzling position. Don’t give me such an answer. Leave the old

answer--to wait.”

“No, I will not. I do not love you. If you were to become the President,

it would not change this fact, and it is everything.”

“Then you love another.”

“That is none of your business, sir. I have known you since childhood. I

have had ample time to know my own mind.”

“All right, we will say good-bye for the present. You have made me a

laughing stock of young fools, but I can stand it. I’ll not give you up,

and if I can’t have you, no other man shall.”

“If you leave my will out of the calculation, you will make a fatal

mistake.”

“Women have been known to change their wills.”

Before leaving her that night Gaston held her hand for an instant as he

bade her good-bye and said, “Miss Sallie, I thank you with inexpressible

gratitude for the honour you have done me.”

“I’ve just been wondering what you have done to deserve it?”

“Absolutely nothing,--that’s why it is so sweet. This has been the

happiest day I ever lived. I cannot see you again before you go. I leave

to-morrow on urgent business. May I come to Independence to see you?”

“Yes, I ’ll be delighted to see you. Good-night.”

Gaston was the last to return to Hambright. He walked the two miles

through the silent starlit woods. He took a short cut his bare feet had

travelled as a boy, and with uncovered head walked slowly through the

dim aisles of great trees. It was good, this cool silence and the soft

mantle of the night about his soul! The stars whispered love. The wind

sighed it through the leaves.

He had withdrawn from the church in his college days because he had

grown to doubt everything--God, heaven, hell, and immortality. To-night

as he walked slowly home he heard that wonderful sentence of the old

Bible ringing down the ages, wet with tears and winged with hope, “_God

is love!_”

He said it now softly and reverently, and the tears came unbidden from

his soul. He felt close to the heart of things. He knew he was close to

the heart of nature. What if nature was only another name for God? And

he whispered it again, “_God is love!_”

“Ah! If I only knew it I would bow down and worship Him forever!” he

cried.

When Sallie reached her mother’s room that night, Mrs. Worth was seated

by her window.

“Why didn’t you dance?”

“Didn’t care to.”

“Sly Miss, you can’t fool me. You didn’t dance because Mr. Gaston

couldn’t. That was a dangerously loud way to talk to him.”

“How did you like him, Mama?”

“Come here, dear, and sit on the edge of my chair. I wish I knew when

you were in earnest about a man. I like him more than I can tell you. He

talked to me so beautifully about his mother, I wanted to kiss him. He

is charming.”

“Why, Mama!”

“I’d like him for a son. There’s a wealth of deep tenderness and manly

power in him.”

“Mama, you’re getting giddy!”

But she kissed her mother twice when she said good night.

CHAPTER X--THE HEART OF A VILLAIN

McLEOD had developed into a man of undoubted power. He was but

thirty-two years old, and the dictator of his party in the state.

He had the fighting temperament which Southern people demand in

their leaders. With this temperament he combined the skill of subtle

diplomatic tact. He had no moral scruples of any kind. The problem of

expediency alone interested him in ethics.

McLeod’s pet aversion was a preacher, especially a Baptist or a

Methodist. His choicest oaths he reserved for them. He made a study of

their weaknesses, and could tell dozens of stories to their discredit,

many of them true. He had an instinct for finding their weak spots and

holding them up to ridicule. He bought every book of militant infidelity

he could find and memorised the bitterest of it. He took special pride

in scoffing at religion before the young converts of Durham’s church.

He was endowed with a personal magnetism that fascinated the young as

the hiss of a snake holds a bird. His serious work was politics and

sensualism. In politics he was at his best. Here he was cunning,

plausible, careful, brilliant and daring. He never lost his head in

defeat or victory. He never forgot a friend, or forgave an enemy. Of his

foe he asked no quarter and gave none.

His ambitions were purely selfish. He meant to climb to the top. As to

the means, the end would justify them. He preferred to associate

with white people. But when it was necessary to win a negro, he never

hesitated to go any length. The centre of the universe to his mind was

A. McLeod.

He was fond of saying to a crowd of youngsters whom he taught to play

poker and drink whiskey, “Boys, I know the world. The great man is the

man who gets there.”

He was generous with his money, and the boys called him a jolly good

fellow. He used to say in explanation of this careless habit, “It won’t

do for an ordinary fool to throw away money as I do. I play for big

stakes. I’m not a spendthrift. I’m simply sowing seed. I can wait for

the harvest.” And when they would admire this overmuch he would warn

them, As a rule my advice is, “Get money. Get it fairly and squarely if

you can, but whatever you do,--get it. When you come right down to it,

money’s your first, last, best and only friend. Others promise well but

when the scratch comes, they fail. Money never fails.”

A boy of fifteen asked him one day when he was mellow with liquor,

“McLeod, which would you rather be, President of the United States or a

big millionaire?”

“Boys,” he replied, smacking his lips, and running his tongue around

his cheeks inside and softly caressing them with one hand, while he half

closed his eyes, “They say old Simon Legree is worth fifty millions of

dollars, and that his actual income is twenty per cent on that. They say

he stole most of it, and that every dollar represents a broken life,

and every cent of it could be painted red with the blood of his victims.

Even so, I would rather be in Legree’s shoes and have those millions a

year than to be Almighty God with hosts of angels singing psalms to me

through all eternity.”

And the shallow-pated satellites cheered this blasphemy with open-eyed

wonder.

The weakest side of his nature was that turned toward women. He was vain

as a peacock, and the darling wish of his soul was to be a successful

libertine. This was the secret of the cruelty back of his desire of

boundless wealth.

He had the intellectual forehead of his Scotch father, large, handsomely

modelled features, nostrils that dilated and contracted widely, and the

thick sensuous lips of his mother. His eyebrows were straight, thick,

and suggested undoubted force of intellect. His hair was a deep red,

thick and coarse, but his moustache was finer and it was his special

pride to point its delicately curved tips.

His vanity was being stimulated just now by two opposite forces. He was

in love, as deeply as such a nature could love, with Sallie Worth. Her

continued rejection of his suit had wounded his vanity, but had roused

all the pugnacity of his nature to strengthen this apparent weakness.

He had discovered recently that he exercised a potent influence over

Mrs. Durham. The moment he was repulsed, his vanity turned for renewed

strength toward her. He saw instantly the immense power even the

slightest indiscretion on her part would give him over the Preacher’s

life. He knew that while he was not a demonstrative man, he loved his

wife with intense devotion. He knew, too, that here was the Preacher’s

weakest spot. In his tireless devotion to his work, he had starved his

wife’s heart. He had noticed that she always called him “Dr. Durham”

now, and that he had gradually fallen into the habit of calling her

“Mrs. Durham.”

This had been fixed in their habits, perhaps by the change from

housekeeping to living at the hotel. Since old Aunt Mary’s death, Mrs.

Durham had given up her struggle with the modern negro servants, closed

her house, and they had boarded for several years.

He saw that if he could entangle her name with his in the dirty gossip

of village society, he could strike his enemy a mortal blow. He knew

that she had grown more and more jealous of the crowds of silly women

that always dog the heels of a powerful minister with flattery and open

admiration. He determined to make the experiment.

Mrs. Durham, while nine years his senior, did not look a day over

thirty. Her face was as smooth and soft and round as a girl’s, her

figure as straight and full, and her every movement instinct with stored

vital powers that had never been drawn upon.

She was in a dangerous period of her mental development. She had been

bitterly disappointed in life. Her loss of slaves and the ancestral

prestige of great wealth had sent the steel shaft of a poisoned dagger

into her soul. She was unreconciled to it. While she was passing through

the anarchy of Legree’s régime which followed the war, her unsatisfied

maternal instincts absorbed her in the work of relieving the poor and

the broken. But when the white race rose in its might and shook off this

nightmare and order and a measure of prosperity had come, she had fallen

back into brooding pessimism.

She had reached the hour of that soul crisis when she felt life would

almost in a moment slip from her grasp, and she asked herself the

question, “Have I lived?” And she could not answer.

She found herself asking the reasons for things long accepted as fixed

and eternal. What was good, right, truth? And what made it good, right,

or true?

And she beat the wings of her proud woman’s heart against the bars that

held her, until tired, and bleeding she was exhausted but unconquered.

She was furious with McLeod for his open association with negro

politicians.

“Allan, in my soul, I am ashamed for you when I see you thus degrade

your manhood.”

“Nonsense, Mrs. Durham,” he replied, “the most beautiful flower grows in

dirt, but the flower is not dirt.”

“Well, I knew you were vain, but that caps the climax!”

“Isn’t my figure true, whether you say I’m dog-fennel or a pink?”

“No, you are not a flower. Will is the soul of man. The flower is ruled

by laws outside itself. A man’s will is creative. You can make law. You

can walk with your head among the stars, and you choose to crawl in a

ditch. I am out of patience with you.”

“But only for a purpose. You must judge by the end in view.”

“There’s no need to stoop so low.”

“I assure you it is absolutely necessary to my aims in life. And they

are high enough. I appreciate your interest in me, more than I dare to

tell you. You have always been kind to me since I was a wild red-headed

brute of a boy. And you have always been my supreme inspiration in work.

While others have cursed and scoffed you smiled at me and your smile has

warmed my heart in its blackest nights.”

She looked at him with a mother-like tenderness.

“What ends could be high enough to justify such methods?”

“I hate poverty and squalour. It’s been my fate. I’ve sworn to climb out

of it, if I have to fight or buy my way through hell to do it. I dream

of a palatial home, of soft white beds, grand banquet halls, and music

and wine, and the faces of those I love near me. Besides, the work I am

doing is the best for the state and the nation.”

“But how can you walk arm in arm with a big black negro, as they say you

do, to get his vote?”

“Simply because they represent 120,000 votes I need. You can’t tell

their colour when they get in the box. I use these fools as so many

worms. My political creed is for public consumption only. I never allow

anybody to impose on me. I don’t allow even Allan McLeod to deceive

me with a paper platform, or a lot of articulated wind. I’m not a

preacher.”

She winced at that shot, blushed and looked at him curiously for a

moment.

“No, you are not a preacher. I wish you were a better man.”

“So do I, when I am with you,” he answered in a low serious voice.

“But I can’t get over the sense of personal degradation involved in your

association with negroes as your equal,” she persisted.

“The trouble is you’re an unreconstructed rebel. Women never really

forgive a social wrong.”

“I am unreconstructed,” she snapped with pride.

“And you thank God daily for it, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. Human nature can’t be reconstructed by the fiat of fools who

tinker with laws,” she cried.

“These thousands of black votes are here. They’ve got to be controlled.

I’m doing the job.”

“You don’t try to get rid of them.”

“Get rid of them? Ye gods, that would be a task! The Negro is the

sentimental pet of the nation. Put him on a continent alone, and he will

sink like an iron wedge to the bottomless pit of barbarism. But he is

the ward of the Republic--our only orphan, chronic, incapable. That

wardship is a grip of steel on the throat of the South. Back of it is an

ocean of maudlin sentimental fools. I am simply making the most of the

situation. I didn’t make it to order. I’m just doing the best I can with

the material in hand.”

“Why don’t you come out like a man and defy this horde of fools?”

“Martyrdom has become too cheap. The preachers have a hundred thousand

missionaries now we are trying to support.”

“Allan, I thought you held below the rough surface of your nature high

ideals,--you don’t mean this.”

“What could one man do against these millions?”

“Do!” she cried, her face ablaze. “The history of the world is made up

of the individuality of a few men. A little Yankee woman wrote a crude

book. The single act of that woman’s will caused the war, killed a

million men, desolated and ruined the South, and changed the history of

the world. The single dauntless personality of George Washington three

times saved the colonies from surrender and created the Republic. I am

surprised to hear a man of your brain and reading talk like that!”

“When I am with you and hear your voice I have heroic impulses. You are

the only human being with whom I would take the time to discuss this

question. But the current is too strong. The other way is easier, and it

serves my ends better. Besides, I am not sure it isn’t better from every

point of view. We’ve got the Negro here, and must educate him.”

“Hush! Tell that to somebody that hates you, not to me,” she cried.

“Don’t you think we must educate them?”

“No, I think it is a crime.”

“Would you leave them in ignorance, a threat to society?”

“Yes, until they can be moved. When I see these young negro men and

women coming out of their schools and colleges well dressed, with their

shallow veneer of an imitation culture, I feel like crying over the

farce.”

“Surely, Mrs. Durham, you believe they are better fitted for life?”

“They are not. They are lifted out of their only possible sphere of

menial service, and denied any career. It is simply inhuman. They are

led to certain slaughter of soul and body at last. It is a horrible

tragedy.”

Allan looked at her, smiled, and replied, “I knew you were a bitter and

brilliant woman but I didn’t think you would go to such lengths even

with your pet aversions.”

“It’s not an aversion, or a prejudice, sir. It’s a simple fact of

history. Education increases the power of the human brain to think and

the heart to suffer. Sooner or later these educated negroes feel the

clutch of the iron hand of the white man’s unwritten laws on their

throat. They have their choice between a suicide’s grave or a prison

cell. And the numbers who dare the grave and the prison cell daily

increase. The South is kinder to the Negro when he is kept in his

place.”

“You are a quarter of a century behind the times.”

“Am I so old?” she laughed.

“The sentiment, not the woman. You are the most beautiful woman I ever

saw.”

“I like all my boys to feel that way about me.”

“You don’t class me quite with the rest, do you?” She blushed the

slightest bit. “No, I’ve always taken a peculiar interest in you. I have

quarrelled with everybody who has hated and spoken evil of you. I have

always believed you were capable of a high and noble life of great

achievement.”

“And your faith in me has been my highest incentive to give the lie to

my enemies and succeed. And I will. I will be the master of this state

within two years. And I want you to remember that I lay it all at your

feet. The world need not know it,--you know it.” He spoke with intense

earnestness.

“But I don’t want you to make such a success at the price of Negro

equality. I feel a sense of unspeakable degradation for you when I hear

your name hissed. At least I was your teacher once. Come Allan, give up

Negro politics and devote yourself to an honourable career in law!”

He shook his head with calm persistence.

“No, this is my calling.”

“Then take a nobler one.”

“To succeed grandly is the only title to nobility here.”

“Is the Doctor on speaking terms with you now?”

“Oh! yes, I joke him about his hide-bound Bourbonism, and he tells me

I am all sorts of a villain. But we have made an agreement to hate one

another in a polite sort of way as becomes a teacher in Israel and a

statesman with responsibilities. By the way, I saw him driving to the

Springs with a bevy of pretty girls a few hours ago.”

“Indeed, I didn’t know it!”

“Yes, he seemed to be having a royal time and to have renewed his

youth.”

An angry flush came to her face and she made no reply. McLeod glanced at

her furtively and smiled at this evidence that his shot had gone home.

“Would you drive with me to the Springs? We will get there before this

party starts back.” She hesitated, and answered, “yes.”

CHAPTER XI--THE OLD OLD STORY

WHEN Gaston arrived in Independence he went direct to St. Clare’s.

“Where the Dickens have you been, Gaston?”

“Jumping from Murphy to Manteo making love to hayseed statesmen.”

“What luck?”

“They’re all crazy. They swear they are going to have the United States

establish a Sub-Treasury in Raleigh and issue Government script they can

use as money on their pumpkins, or they are going to tear the nation to

tatters and vote for a nigger for Governor if necessary!”

“Can’t you get into their fool heads that an alliance with the

Republican party is the last way on earth for them to go about their

Sub-Treasury schemes?”

“Can’t seem to do a thing with them. McLeod’s stuffed them full. I’m

sick of it. I’ve a notion to let them go with the niggers and go to the

devil. It’s growing on me that there must be another way out. I can’t

get down in the dirt and prostitute my intellect and lie to these fools.

We’ve got to get rid of the Negro.”

“A large job, old man.”

“Yes, it is, and thank God I’m done with it for a week. I’m going

to heaven now for a few days. I ’ll see her in an hour. I rise on

tireless wings!”

“Look out you don’t come down too suddenly. The earth may feel hard.”

“Bob, I’m going to risk it. I’m going to look fate squarely in the face

and get my answer like a little man, for life or death.”

Mrs. Worth met Gaston and greeted him with warmest cordiality.

“We are charmed to welcome you to Oakwood again, Mr. Gaston.”

“I assure you, Mrs. Worth, I never saw a home so beautiful. I feel as

though I am in paradise when I get here.”

“I hope to see more of you this time, I feel that I know you so much

better since our talk at the Springs.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Worth.” He said this so simply and earnestly she could

but feel his deep appreciation of her attitude of welcome.

“Sallie will be down in a minute.”

Gaston smiled in spite of himself.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I was just thinking how sweetly her name sounded on your lips.”

“Do you like these old-fashioned Southern names?”

“I think they are lovely.”

“Well, that’s my name too.”

Sallie suddenly stepped from the hall into the doorway.

“Now, Mama, there you are again carrying on with one of my beaux! I

don’t know what I will do with you!”

Mrs. Worth actually blushed, sprang up and struck Sallie lightly on the

arm with her fan exclaiming, “Oh! you sly thing, to stand out there and

listen to what I said! Mr. Gaston I turn her over to you to punish her

for such conduct.”

“Isn’t she a dear?” said Sallie when her mother was gone.

“I was charmed with her at the Springs, but the gracious way she made me

feel at home this morning completely won my heart.”

“I can do anything with Mama. She’s the dearest mother that ever lived.

She always seems to know intuitively my heart’s wish, and, if it’s best,

give it to me, and if it’s not, she makes me cease to desire it. I wish

I could manage Papa as easily.”

“I’m sure he idolises you, Miss Sallie.”

“He does, but when he lays the law down, that settles it. I can’t move

him one inch.”

“That’s the way with forceful men, who do things in the world.”

“Well, I confess I like to have my own way sometimes. I wonder if you

are like that?”

“I ’ll be frank with you. Somehow I never could be anything else if I

tried. I don’t think a man of strong character will yield to every whim

of a woman, whether wife or daughter.”

“I heard of a man the other day who whipped his wife,” she said in a

far away tone of voice. “Come, my horse is ready, go with me for another

ride to-day. I am going to take you across the river and show you a

pretty drive over there.”

They were soon lost in the deep shadows of the stately pine forest that

lay beyond the Catawba. The road was a cross-country narrow way that

wound in and out around the big trees.

They jogged slowly along while he bathed his soul in the joy of her

presence. Oh, to be alone and near her! There seemed to him a magic

power in the touch of her dress as she sat in the little buggy so close

by his side. For hours, again he lay at her feet and drank the wine of

her beauty until his heart was drunk with love.

Once he opened his lips to tell her, and a great fear awed him into

silence. He longed to pour out to her his passion, but feared

her answer. He Had studied her every word and tone and look and

hand-pressure since he had known her. He was sure she loved him. And yet

he was not sure. She was so skilled in the science of self defence, so

subtle a mistress of all the arts of polite society in which the soul’s

deepest secrets are hid from the world, he was paralysed now as the

moment drew near. He put it off another day and gave himself up to the

pure delight of her face and form and voice and presence.

That evening when she entered the home her mother caught her hand and

softly whispered, “Did he court you to-day, Sallie?”

She shook her head smilingly. “No, but I think he will to-morrow.”

St. Clare was sitting on his veranda awaiting Gaston’s return.

“What luck, old boy?” he eagerly asked.

“Couldn’t say a word. I ’ll do it to-morrow or die.”

“Shake hands partner. I’ve been there.”

“Bob, it’s a serious thing to run up against a little answer ‘yes’ or

‘no,’ that means life or death.”

“Feel like you’d rather live on hope a while, and let things drift,

don’t you?”

“Exactly, I think I can understand for the first time in my life that

awful look in a prisoner’s face on trial for his life, when he watches

the lips of the foreman of the jury to catch the first letter of the

verdict. I used to think that an interesting psychological study. By

George, I feel I am his brother now.”

The next day was perfect. The warm life-giving sun of June was tempered

by breezes that swept fresh and invigorating over the earth that had

been drenched with showers in the night. The woods were ringing with the

chorus of feathered throats chanting the old oratorio of life and love.

Again Gaston and Sallie were jogging along the shady river road they had

travelled on the first day she had taken him driving.

“Do you remember this road?” she asked.

“I ’ll never forget it. Along this road we hurried in the twilight

to face your angry mother, and just one kiss smoothed her brow into a

welcoming smile for me.”

“Well, I’m going to risk greater trouble to-day, and take you a mile or

two further up the river to the old mill site at the rapids. It’s the

most beautiful and romantic spot in the country. The river spreads out

a quarter of a mile in width, and goes plunging and dashing down the

rapids through thousands of projecting rocks, a mass of white foam

as far as you can see. It’s full of tiny green islands with feras and

rhododendron and wild grape vines, and their perfume sweetens the air

for miles along the water. These little islands, some ten feet square,

some an acre, are full of mocking-birds nesting there, though since the

mills were burned during the war nobody has lived near. The songs of

these birds seem tuned to the music of the river.”

“It must be a glimpse of fairy-land!” he exclaimed.

“I know you will be thrilled with its romantic beauty. It’s five miles

from a house in any direction.”

Gaston was silent. He made a resolution in his soul that he would never

leave that spot until he knew his fate. His heart began to thump now

like a sledge-hammer. He looked down furtively at her and tried to

imagine how she would look and what she would say when he should startle

her first with some word of tender endearment or the sound of her name

he had said over and over a thousand times in his heart, and aloud when

alone, but never dared to use without its prefix.

She saw his abstraction and divined intuitively the current of emotions

with which he was struggling, but pretended not to notice it. He tied

the horse at the old mill, and they walked slowly down the bank of the

river.

“That is my island,” she cried pointing out into the river. “That third

one in the group running out from the point. We can step from one rock

to another to it.”

It was indeed an entrancing spot. The island seemed all alone in the

middle of the river when one was on it. It was not more than fifty feet

wide and a hundred feet long, its length lying with the swift current.

At the lower end of it a fine ash tree spread its dense shade, hanging

far over the still waters that stood in smooth eddy at its roots. On the

upper side of this tree lay a big boulder resting against its trunk and

embedded in a mass of clean white sand the water had filtered and washed

and thrown there on some spring flood.

She climbed on this rock, sat down, and leaned her bare head against its

trunk.

“This is my throne,” she laughingly cried.

[Illustration: 0300]

He leaned against the rock and looked up at her with eyes through

which the yearning, the hunger, the joy, and the fear of all life were

quivering. What a picture she made under the dark cool shadows! Her

dress was again of spotless white that seemed now to have been woven out

of the foam of the river. Her throat was bare, her cheeks flushed, and

her wavy hair the wind had blown loose into a hundred stray ringlets

about her face and neck. Her lips were trembling with a smile at his

speechless admiration.

“You seem to have been struck dumb,” she said. “Isn’t this glorious?”

“Beyond words, Miss Sallie. I didn’t know there was such a spot on the

earth.”

“This is my favourite perch. Art and wealth could never make anything

like this! I could come here and sit and dream all day alone if Mama

would let me.”

He tried to begin the story of his love, but every time his tongue

refused to move. He was trembling with nervous hesitation and began to

dig a hole in the sand with his heel.

“What is the matter with you to-day? I never saw you so serious and

moody.”

Just then a female mocking-bird in her modest dove-coloured dress lit on

a swaying limb whose tips touched the still water of the eddy at their

feet, and her proud mate with head erect, far up on the topmost twig

of the ash struck softly the first note of his immortal love poem, the

dropping song.

“Listen, he’s going to sing his dropping song!” he cried in a whisper.

And they listened. He sang his first stanza in a low dreamy voice, and

then as the sweetness of his love and the glory of his triumph grew on

his bird soul, he lifted his clear notes higher and higher until the

woods on the banks of the river rang with its melody.

His mate turned her eyes upward and quietly twittered a sweet little

answer.

His response rang like a silver trumpet far up in the sky! He sprang ten

feet into the air and slowly dropped singing, singing his long trilling

notes of melting sweetness. He stopped on the topmost twig, sat a

moment, never ceasing his matchless song, and then began to fall

downward from limb to limb toward his mate, pouring out his soul in mad

abandonment of joy, but growing softer, sweeter, more tender as he

drew nearer. They could see her tremble now with pride and love at his

approach, as she glanced timidly upward, and answered him with maiden

modesty. At last when he reached her side, his song was so low and sweet

and dream-like it could scarcely be heard. He touched the tip of

her beak with a bird kiss, they chirped, and flew away to the woods

together.

Gaston determined to speak or die. His eyes were wet with unshed tears,

and he was trembling from head to foot. He had meant to pour out his

love for her like that bird in words of passionate beauty, but all he

could do was to say with stammering voice low and tense with emotion,

“Miss Sallie, I love you!”

He had meant to say “Sallie,” but at the last gasp of breath, as he

spoke, his courage had failed. He did not look up at first. And when she

was silent, he timidly looked up, fearing to hear the answer or read

it in her face. She smiled at him and broke into a low peal of

joyous laughter! And there was a note of joy in her laughter that was

contagious.

“Please don’t laugh at me,” he stammered, smiling himself.

She buried her face in her hands and laughed again. She looked at him

with her great blue eyes wide open, dancing with fun, and wet with

tears.

“Do you know, it’s the funniest thing in the world, you are the sixth

man who has made love to me on this rock within a year!” and again she

laughed in his face.

“Look here, Miss Sallie, this is cruel!”

“Dear old rock. It’s enchanted. It never fails!” and she laughed softly

again, and patted the rock with her hand.

“Surely you have tortured me long enough. Have some pity.”

“It is a pitiable sight to see a big eloquent man stammer and do silly

things isn’t it?”

“Please give me your answer,” he cried still trembling.

“Oh! it’s not so serious as all that!” she said with dancing eyes.

“I’m in the dust at your feet.”

“You mean in the sand. Did you know that you dug a hole in that sand

deep enough to bury me in? I thought once you were meditating murder by

the expression on your face.”

“Please give me one earnest look from your eyes,” he pleaded.

“You’re a terrible disappointment,” she answered leaning back and

putting her hands behind her head thoughtfully.

His heart stood still at this unexpected speech.

“How?” he slowly asked, looking down at the sand again.

“Because,” she said in her old tantalising tone, “I expected so much of

you.”

“Then you don’t class me with the other poor devils at least?” he asked

hopefully.

“No, no, they were handsome boys and made me beautiful speeches. But you

are distinguished. You are a man that everybody would look at twice in

a crowd. You are a famous young orator who can hold thousands breathless

with eloquence. I thought you would make me the most beautiful speech.

But you acted like a school boy, stammered, looked foolish, and pawed a

hole in the ground!” Again she laughed.

“I confess, Miss Sallie, I was never so overwhelmed with terror and

nervousness by an audience before.”

“And just one girl to hear!”

“Yes, but she counts more with me than all the other millions, and

one kind look from her eyes I would hold dearer at this moment than a

conquered world’s applause.”

“That’s fine! That’s something like it. Say more!” she cried.

His face clouded and he looked earnestly at her.

“Come, come, Miss Sallie, this is too cruel. I have torn my heart’s

deepest secrets open to you, and tremblingly laid my life at your feet,

and you are laughing at me. I have paid you the highest homage one human

soul can offer another. Surely I deserve better than this?”

“There, you do. Forgive me. I have seen so much shallow love making,

I am never quite sure a boy’s in dead earnest.” She spoke now with

seriousness.

“You cannot doubt my earnestness. I have spoken to you this morning the

first words of love that ever passed my lips. One chamber of my soul has

always been sacred. It was the throne room of Love, reserved for the One

Woman waiting for me somewhere whom I should find. I would not allow an

angel to enter it, and I hid it from the face of God. I have opened it

this morning. It is yours.”

She softly slipped her hand in his, and tremblingly said, while a tear

stole down her cheek, “I do love you!”

He bent over her hand and kissed it, and kissed it, while his frame

shook with uncontrollable emotion. Then looking up through his dimmed

eyes, he said, “My darling, that was the sweetest music, that sentence,

that I shall ever hear in this world or in all the worlds beyond it in

eternity!”

“When did you first begin to love me?” she asked.

“I don’t know. But I loved you the first moment you looked into my face

while I was speaking that day. And I recognised you instantly as the

Dream of my Soul. I have loved you for ever, ages before we were born in

this world, somewhere, our souls met and knew and loved. And I’ve been

looking for you ever since. When I saw you there in the crowd that day

looking up at me with those beautiful blue eyes, I felt like shouting

‘I have found her! I have found her!’ and rushing to your side lest I

should not see you again.”

“It is strange--this feeling that we have known each other forever. The

moment you touched my hand that first day, a sense of perfect content

and joy in living came over me. I couldn’t remember the time when I

hadn’t known you. You seemed so much a part of my inmost thoughts and

every day life. I laughed this morning from sheer madness of joy when

you told me your love. I knew you were going to tell me to-day. You

tried yesterday, but I held you back. I wanted you to tell me here at

this beautiful spot, that the music of this water might always sing its

chorus with the memory of your words.”

“Let me kiss your lips once!” he pleaded.

“No, you shall hold my hand and kiss that. Your touch thrills every

nerve of my being like wine. It is enough. I promised Mama I would

never allow a man to kiss me without asking her. And we are like loving

comrades. I couldn’t violate a promise to her. I will, when she says

so.”

“Then I ’ll ask her. I know she’s on my side.”

“Yes, I believe she loves you because I do.”

“What did you whisper to her that night, when we came late, and you said

she would be angry?”

“Told her I loved you.”

“If I could only have caught that whisper then! You don’t know how it

delights me to think your mother likes me. I couldn’t help loving her.

It seems to me a divine seal on our lives.”

“Yes, and what specially delights me is, you have completely captured

Papa, and he’s so hard to please.”

“You don’t say so!”

“Yes, he’s been preaching you at me ever since you came the first

time. I pretended to be indifferent to draw him out. He would say, ‘Now

Sallie, there’s a man for you,--no pretty dude, but a man, with a kingly

eye and a big brain. That’s the kind of a man who does things in the

world and makes history for smaller men to read.’ And then I’d say just

to aggravate him, ‘But Papa he’s as poor as Job’s turkey!’”

“Then you ought to have heard him, ‘Well, what of it! You can begin in

a cabin like your mother and I did. He’s got a better start than I had,

for he has a better training.’”

“I am certainly glad to hear that!” Gaston cried with elation.

“You may be. For Papa is a man of such intense likes and dislikes. The

first thing that made my heart flutter with fear was that he might not

like you. He loves me intensely. And I love him devotedly. I could not

marry without his consent. You are so entirely different from any other

beau I ever had, I couldn’t imagine what Papa would think of you. You

wear such a serious face, never go into society, care nothing for fine

clothes, and are so careless that you even hung your feet out of the

buggy that first day I took you to drive. I was glad to have you in the

woods and not in town. The boys would have guyed me to death. In fact

you are the contradiction of the average man I have known, and of all

the men I thought as a girl I’d marry some day. I am so glad Papa likes

you.”

That evening when they reached the house, she hurried through the hall

to her mother who was standing on the back porch. There was the sudden

swish of a dress, a kiss, another! and another! And then the low murmur

of a mother’s voice like the crooning over a baby.

CHAPTER XII--THE MUSIC OF THE MILLS

WHEN Gaston reached his home that night St. Clare had gone to bed. It

was one o’clock. He could not sleep yet, so he sat in the window and

tried to realise his great happiness, as he looked out on the green lawn

with its white gravelled walk glistening in the full moon.

“The world is beautiful, life is sweet, and God is good!” he cried in an

ecstasy of joy.

He sat there in the moonlight for an hour dreaming of his love and the

great strenuous life of achievement he would live with her to inspire

him. It seemed too good to be true. And yet it was the largest living

fact. Like throbbing music the words were ringing in his heart keeping

time with the rhythm of its beat, “I do love you!” And then he did

something he had not done for years.--not since his boyhood,--he knelt

in the silence of the moonlit room and prayed. Love the great Revealer

had led him into the presence of God. The impulse was spontaneous and

resistless. “Lord, I have seen Thy face, heard Thy voice, and felt the

touch of Thy hand to-day! I bless and praise Thee! Forgive my doubts and

fears and sins, cleanse and make me worthy of her whom Thou has sent as

Thy messenger!” So he poured out his soul.

Next morning he grasped St. Clare’s hand as he entered the room. “Bob,

I’m the happiest man in the world!”

“Congratulations! You look it.”

“She loves me! I’d like to climb up on the top of this house and shout

it until all earth and heaven could hear and be glad with me!”

“Well, don’t do it, my boy. See her father first!”

“She says he likes me.”

“Then you’re elected.”

“I’m going to tackle him before I go home.”

“Don’t rush him. There’s a superstition prevalent here that the old

gentleman has no idea of ever letting his daughter leave that home, and

that he will never give his consent, when driven to the wall, unless his

son-inlaw that is to be, will agree to settle down there and take his

place in those big mills. He has two great loves, his daughter and his

mills, and he don’t mean to let either one of them go if he can help

it.”

“Do you believe it’s true?”

“Yes, I do. How do you like the idea?”

“It’s not my style. I’ve a pretty clear idea of what I’m going to do in

this world.”

“Well, you’d better begin to haul in your silk sails, and study cotton

goods, is my advice.”

“I ’ll manage him.”

“I don’t know about it, but if you’ve got her, you’re the first man

that ever got far enough to measure himself with the General. I wish you

luck.”

“You the same, old chum. May you conquer Boston and all the Pilgrim

Fathers!”

“Thanks. The vision of one of them disturbs my dreams. One will be

enough.”

Then followed six golden days on the banks of the Catawba. Every day he

insisted with boyish enthusiasm on returning to that rock and seating

her on her throne. He called her his queen, and worshipped at her feet.

He had the friendliest little chat with her mother, and told her how

he loved her daughter and hoped for her approval. She answered with

frankness that she was glad, and would love him as her own son, but that

she disapproved of kissing and extravagant love-making until they were

ready to be married, and their engagement duly announced.

So he could only hold Sallie’s hand and kiss the tips of her fingers and

the little dimples where they joined the hand, and sometimes he would

hold it against his own cheek while she smiled at him.

But when they rode homeward one evening he dared to put his arm behind

her, high on the phaeton’s leather cushion, as they were going down a

hill, and then lowered it a little as they started up the grade. She

leaned back and found it there. At first she nestled against it very

timidly and then trustingly. She looked into his face and both smiled.

“Isn’t that nice, Sallie?”

“Yes, it is,--I don’t think Mama would mind that, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, I never promised not to lean back in a phaeton, did I?”

“Certainly not, and it’s all right.”

Toward the end of the week the General began to show him a grave

friendly interest. He invited Gaston to go over the mills with him. The

mills were located back of the wooded cliffs a quarter of a mile up the

river. There were now four magnificent brick buildings stretching out

over the river bottoms at right angles to its current. And there was a

big dye house, a ginning house and a cotton-seed oil mill. The General

stood on the hill top and proudly pointed it out to him.

“Isn’t that a grand sight, young man! We employ 2,000 hands down there,

and consume hundreds of bales of cotton a day. We began here after the

war without a cent, except our faith, and this magnificent water power.

Now look!”

“You have certainly done a great work,” said Gaston, “I had no idea you

had so many industries in the enclosure.”

“Yes, I sit down here on the hill some nights in the moonlight and look

into this valley, and the hum of that machinery is like ravishing music.

The machinery seems to me to be a living thing, with millions of fingers

of steel and a great throbbing soul. I dream of the day when those swift

fingers will weave their fabrics of gold and clothe the whole South in

splendour!--the South I love, and for which I fought, and have yearned

over through all these years. Ah! young man, I wish you boys of

brain and genius would quit throwing yourselves away in law and dirty

politics, and devote your powers to the South’s development!”

“Yes, but General, the people of the South had to go into politics

instead of business on account of the enfranchisement of the Negro. It

was a matter of life and death.”

“I didn’t do it.”

“No, sir, but others did for you.”

“How?” he asked incredulously, with just a touch of wounded pride.

“Well how many negroes do you employ in these mills?”

“None. We don’t allow a negro to come inside the enclosure.”

“Precisely so. You have prospered because you have got rid of the

Negro.”

“I’ve simply let the Negro alone. Let others do the same.”

“But everybody can’t do it. There are now nine millions of them. You’ve

simply shifted the burden on others’ shoulders. You haven’t solved the

problem.”

“If we had less politics and more business, we would be better off.”

“But the trouble is, General, we can’t have more business until politics

have settled some things.”

“Bah! You’re throwing yourself away in politics, young man! There’s

nothing in it but dirt and disappointment.”

“To me, sir, politics is a religion.”

“Religion! Politics! I didn’t know you could ever mix ’em. I thought

they were about as far apart as heaven is from hell!” exclaimed the

General.

“They ought not to be sir, whatever the terrible facts, I believe

that the Government is the organised virtue of the community, and that

politics is religion in action. It may be a poor sort of religion, but

it is the best we are capable of as members of society.”

“Well, that’s a new idea.”

“It’s coming to be more and more recognised by thoughtful men, General.

I believe that the State is now the only organ through which the whole

people can search for righteousness, and that the progress of the world

depends more than ever on its integrity and purity.”

“Well, you’ve cut out a big job for yourself, if that’s your ideal. My

idea of politics is a pig pen. The way to clean it is to kill the pigs.”

Gaston laughed and shook his head.

When they returned from the mills, Mrs. Worth drew the General into her

room.

“Did he ask you for Sallie?”

“No, the young galoot never mentioned her name. I thought he would. But

I must have scared him.”

“You didn’t quarrel over anything?”

“No! But I found out he had a mind of his own.”

“So have you, sir.”

CHAPTER XIII--THE FIRST KISS

WHY didn’t you ask him yesterday?” cried Sallie, as she entered the

parlour the next morning.

“Darling, I was scared out of my wits. We got crossways on some

questions we were discussing, and he snorted at me once, and every time

I tried to screw up my courage to speak, a lump got in my throat and

I gave it up. I thought I’d wait a day or two until he should be in a

better humour.”

“He’s gone away to-day,” she said with disappointment.

“I’m glad of it, I ’ll write him a letter.”

“If you had asked him yesterday it would have been all right. He told me

so when he left this morning, with a very tender tremor in his voice.”

“But it will be all right, sweetheart, when I write.”

“I wanted my ring,” she whispered.

“You shall have it,” he said, as he seized her hand and led her to a

seat.

“Have you got it with you?” she asked with excitement. “Let me see it

quick.”

He drew the little box from his pocket, withdrew the ring, concealing it

in his hand, slipped it on her finger and kissed it. She threw her hand

up into the light to see it.

“Oh! it is glorious! It’s the big green diamond Hiddenite I saw at the

Exposition! It is the most beautiful stone I ever saw, and the only one

of its kind in size and colour in the world. Professor Hidden told me

so. I tried to get Papa to buy it for me. But he laughed at me, and said

it was childish extravagance. Charlie dear, how could you get it?”

“That’s a little secret. But there are to be no secrets between us

any more. I had a little hoard saved from my mother’s estate for the

greatest need of my life. I confess my extravagance.”

“You are a matchless lover. I’m the proudest and happiest girl that

breathes.”

“Nothing is too good for you, I wish I could make a greater sacrifice.”

“Wait, till I show it to Mama,” and she flew to her mother’s room. She

returned immediately, looking at the ring and kissing it.

“Couldn’t show it to her, she had company,” she said. “Allan is talking

to her.”

“Let’s get out of the house, dear. I hate that man like a rattlesnake.”

“Don’t be silly, I never cared a snap for him.”

“I know you didn’t, but there is a poison about him that taints the air

for me. Get your horse and let’s go to our place at the old mill.”

They soon reached the spot, and with a laugh she sprang upon the rock

and took her seat against the tree.

“Now, dear, humour this whim of mine. I’ve grown superstitious since

you’ve made me happy. I have a presentiment of evil because that man was

in the house. I am going to take the ring off and put it on your hand

again out here where only the eyes of our birds will see, and the river

we love will hear.”

“That will be nicer. I somehow feel that my life is built on this dear

old rock,” she answered soberly.

He took the ring off her finger, dipped it in the white foam of the

river, kissed it, and placed it on her hand.

“Now the spell is broken, isn’t it?” she cried, holding it out in the

sunlight a moment to catch the flash of its green diamond depth.

“I’ve another token for you. This, you will not even show to your mother

or father.” She bent low over a tiny package he unfolded.

“This is the first medal I won at college,” he continued--“the first

victory of my life. It was the force that determined my character.

It gave me an inflexible will. I worked at a tremendous disadvantage.

Others were two years ahead of me in study for the contest. I locked

myself up in my room day and night for ten months, and took just enough

food and sleep for strength to work. I worked seventeen hours a day,

except Sundays, for ten months without an hour of play. I won it

brilliantly. Every line cut on its gold surface stands for a thousand

aches of my body. Every little pearl set in it, grew in a pain of that

struggle which set its seal on my inmost life. I came out of those ten

months a man. I have never known the whims of a boy since.”

“And you engraved something on the back to me!”

“Yes, can’t you read it?”

“My eyes are dim,” she whispered.

“It is this--_In the hand of manhood’s tenderest love I bring to thee

my boyhood’s brightest dream_. I was a man when I woke, but I have never

lived till you taught me. Keep this as a pledge of eternal love. It’s

the only little trinket I ever possessed. The world will see our ring.

Don’t let them see this. It is the seal of your sovereignty of my soul

in life, in death, and beyond. Will you make me this eternal pledge?”

“Unto the uttermost!” she murmured.

“Unto the uttermost!” he solemnly echoed.

“And now, what can I say or do for you when you show me in this spirit

of prodigal sacrifice how dear I am in your eyes?”

“Those words from your lips are enough,” he declared.

“I ’ll give you more. I’m going to give you just a little bit of

myself. I haven’t asked Mama, but we are engaged now--come closer.”

She placed her beautiful arms around his neck and pressed her lips upon

his in the first rapturous kiss of love.

“No,--no more. It is enough,” she protested.

CHAPTER XIV--A MYSTERIOUS LETTER

HE was at home now, waiting impatiently for the General’s answer to

his letter. Two weeks had passed and he had not received it. But she had

explained in her letters that her father had returned the day he left,

had a talk with McLeod, and left on important business. They were

expecting his return at any moment.

It was a new revelation of life he found in their first love letters. He

never knew that he could write before. He sat for hours at his desk in

his law office and poured out to her his dreams, hopes and ambitions.

All the poetry of youth, and the passion and beauty of life, he put into

those letters.

He wrote to her every day and she answered every other day. She wrote in

half tearful apology that her mother disapproved of a daily letter, and

she added wistfully, “I should like to write to you twice a day. Take

the will for the deed, and as you love me, be sure to continue yours

daily.”

And on the days the letter came, with eager trembling hands he seized

it, without waiting for the rest of his mail or his papers. With set

face, and quick nervous step, he would mount the stairs to his office,

lock his door and sit down to devour it. He would hold it in his hands

sometimes for ten minutes just to laugh and muse over it and try to

guess what new trick of phrase she had used to express her love. He

was surprised at her brilliance and wit. He had not held her so deep a

thinker on the serious things of life as these letters had showed, nor

had he noticed how keen her sense of humour. He was so busy looking at

her beautiful face, and drinking the love-light from her eyes, he had

overlooked these things when with her. Now they flashed on him as a new

treasure, that would enrich his life.

At the end of two weeks when the General had not answered his letter he

began to grow nervous. A vague feeling of fear grew on him. Something

had happened to darken his future. He felt it by a subtle telepathy of

sympathetic thought. He was gloomy and depressed all day after he had

received and feasted on the wittiest letter she had ever written. What

could it mean he asked himself a thousand times--some shadow had fallen

across their lives. He knew it as clearly as if the revelation of its

misery were already unfolded.

He went to the post-office on the next day he was to receive a letter,

crushed with a sense of foreboding. He waited until the mail was

all distributed and the general delivery window flung open before he

approached his box. He was afraid to look at her letter. He slowly

opened the box.

There was nothing in it!

“Sam, you’re not holding out my letter to tease me, old boy?” he asked

pathetically.

Sam was about to joke him about the uncertainties of love, when his eye

rested on his drawn face.

“Lord no, Charlie,” he protested, “you know I wouldn’t treat you like

that.”

“Then look again, you may have dropped it.”

Sam turned and looked carefully over the floor, over and under his desks

and tables and returned.

“No, but it may have been thrown into the wrong bag by that fool mail

clerk on the train. You may get it to-morrow.”

He turned away and walked to his office, forgetting his key in the open

box. The vague sense of calamity that weighed on his heart for the past

two days, now became a reality.

He sat in his office all the afternoon in a dull stupor of suspense. He

tried to read her last letter over. But the pages would get blurred and

fade out of sight, and he would wake to find he had been staring at one

sentence for an hour.

He knew his foster mother would be all sympathy and tenderness if he

told her, but somehow he hadn’t the heart. She had led him to his

love. He had been so boyishly and frankly happy boasting to her of his

success, he sickened at the thought of telling her. He went out for

a walk in the woods, and lay down alone beside a brook like a wounded

animal.

The next day he watched his box again with the hope that Sam’s guess

might be right, and the missing letter would come. But, instead of the

big square-cut envelope he had waited for, he received a bulky letter

in an old-fashioned masculine handwriting with the post mark of

Independence, and a mill mark in the upper left hand corner.

He did not have to look twice at that letter. It was the sealed verdict

of his jury. He locked his office door. It was long and rambling, full

of a kindly sympathy expressed in a restrained manner. He could not

believe at first that so outspoken a man as the General could have

written it. The substance of its meaning, however, was plain enough. He

meant to say that as he was not in a position to make a suitable home at

present for a wife, and as he disapproved of long engagements, it seemed

better that no engagement should be entered into or announced.

He stared at this letter for an hour, trying to grasp the mystery that

lay back of its halting, half-contradictory sentences. He did not know

till long afterwards that the General had written it with two blue eyes

tearfully watching him, and waiting to read it; that now and then there

was the sound of a great sob, and two arms were around his neck, and a

still white face lying on his shoulder, and that tears had washed all

the harshness and emphasis out of what he had meant to write, and all

but blotted out any meaning to what he did write.

But withal it was clear enough in its import. It meant that the General

had haltingly but authoritatively denied his suit. He instantly made

up his mind to ask an interview at his home, and know plainly all his

reasons for this change of attitude. He wrote his letter and posted it

immediately by return mail. He knew that the request would precipitate a

crisis, and he trembled at the outcome. Either her father would hesitate

and receive him, or end it with a crash of his imperious will.

CHAPTER XV--A BLOW IN THE DARK

THE noon mail brought Gaston no answer. At night he felt sure it would

come.

When the wagon dashed up to the post-office that night it was fifteen

minutes late. He was walking up and down the street on the opposite

pavement along the square, keeping under the shadows of the trees.

He turned, quickly crossed the street, and stood inside the office,

listening with a feeling of strange abstraction to the tramp of the

postmaster’s feet back and forth as he distributed the mail. He never

knew before what a tragedy might be concealed in the thrust of a bit of

folded paper into a tiny glass-eyed box. As he waited, fearing to face

his fate, he remembered the pathetic figure of a grey-haired old man who

stood there one day hanging on that desk softly talking to himself.

He was a stranger at the Springs, and they were alone in the office

together. Now and then he brushed a tear from his eyes, glanced timidly

at the window of the general delivery, starting at every quick movement

inside as though afraid the window had opened. Gaston had gone up close

to the old man, drawn by the look of anguish in his dignified face.

The stranger intuitively recognised the sympathy of the movement, and

explained tremblingly: “My son, I am waiting for a message of life or

death”--he faltered, seized his hand, adding, “and I’m afraid to see

it!”

Just then the window opened and he clutched his arm and gasped, with

dilated staring eyes, “There, there it’s come! You go for me, my son,

and ask while I pray!--I’m afraid.” How well Gaston remembered now with

what trembling eagerness the old man had broken the seal, and then stood

with head bowed low, crying, “I thank and bless thee, oh, Mother of

Jesus, for this hour!” And looking up into his face with tear-streaming

eyes he cried in a rich low voice like tender music, “How beautiful are

the feet of them that bring glad tidings!”

He could feel now the warm pressure of his hand as he walked out of the

office with him.

How vividly the whole scene came rushing over him! He thought he

sympathised with his old friend that night, but now he entered into the

fellowship of his sorrow. Now he knew.

At last he drew himself up, walked to his box and opened it. His heart

leaped. A big square-cut envelope lay in it, addressed to him in her own

beautiful hand. He snatched it out and hurried to his office. The moment

he touched it, his heart sank. It was light and thin. Evidently there

was but a single sheet of paper within.

He tore it open and stared at it with parted lips and half-seeing eyes.

The first word struck his soul with a deadly chill. This was what he

read:

_“My Dear Mr. Gaston:_

_“I write in obedience to the wishes of my parents to say our engagement

must end and our correspondence cease. I can not explain to you the

reasons for this. I have acquiesced in their judgment, that it is best._

_“I return your letters by to-morrow’s mail, and Mama requests that you

return mine to her at Oakwood immediately._

_“I leave to-night on the Limited for Atlanta where I join a friend.

We go to Savannah, and thence by steamer to Boston where I shall visit

Helen for a month._

_“Sincerely,_

_“Sallie Worth.”_

For a long time he looked at the letter in a stupor of amazement. That

her father could coerce her hand into writing such a brutal commonplace

note was a revelation of his power he had never dreamed. And then his

anger began to rise. His fighting blood from soldier ancestors made his

nerves tingle at this challenge.

He took up the letter and read it again curiously studying each word. He

opened the folded sheet hoping to find some detached message. There was

nothing inside. But he noticed on the other side of the sheet a lot of

indentures as though made by the end of a needle. He turned it back

and studied these dots under different letters in the words made by the

needle points. He spelled,--

“_My Darling--Unto the Uttermost!_”

And then he covered the note with kisses, sprang to his feet and looked

at his watch.

It was now ten-thirty. The Limited left Independence at eleven o’clock

and made no stops for the first hundred miles toward Atlanta. But just

to the south where the railroad skirted the foot of King’s Mountain,

there was a water tank on the mountain side where he knew the train

stopped for water about midnight.

With a fast horse he could make the eighteen miles and board the Limited

at this water station. The only danger was if the sky should cloud over

and the starlight be lost it would be difficult to keep in the narrow

road that wound over the semi-mountainous hills, densely wooded, that

must be crossed to make it.

“I ’ll try it!” he exclaimed. “Yes, I will do it!” he added setting

his teeth. “I ’ll make that train.”

He got the best horse he could find in the livery stable, saw that his

saddle girths were strong, sprang on and galloped toward the south.

It was a quarter to eleven when he started, and it seemed a doubtful

undertaking. The Limited would make the run from Independence, fifty-two

miles, in an hour at the most. If she were on time it would be a close

shave for him to make the eighteen miles.

The sky clouded slightly before he reached the mountain. In spite of his

vigilance he lost his way and had gone a quarter of a mile before a rift

in the cloud showed him the north star suddenly, and he found he had

taken the wrong road at the crossing and was going straight back home.

Wheeling his horse, he put spurs to him, and dashed at full speed back

through the dense woods.

Just as he got within a mile of the tank he heard the train blow for the

bridge-crossing at the river near by.

“Now, my boy,” he cried to his horse, patting him. “Now your level

best!”

The horse responded with a spurt of desperate speed. He had a way of

handling a horse that the animal responded to with almost human sympathy

and intelligence. He seemed to breathe his own will into the horse’s

spirit. He flew over the ground, and reached the train just as the

fireman cut off the water and the engineer tapped his bell to start.

He flung his horse’s rein over a hitching post that stood near the

silent little station-house, rushed to the track, and sprang on the day

coach as it passed.

He had intended to ride fifty miles on this train, see his sweetheart

face to face--learn the truth from her own lips--and then return on the

up-train. He hoped to ride back to Hambright before day and keep the

fact of his trip a secret.

Now a new difficulty arose--a very simple one--that he had not thought

of for a moment. She was in a Pullman sleeper of course, and asleep.

There were three sleepers, one for Atlanta, one for New Orleans, and

one for Memphis. He hoped she was in the Atlanta sleeper as that was her

destination, though if that were crowded in its lower berths she might

be in either of the others. But how under heaven could he locate her?

The porter probably would not know her.

He was puzzled. The conductor approached and he paid his fare to the

next stop, fifty miles.

“I’ve an important message for a passenger in one of these sleepers,

Captain,” he exclaimed. “I have ridden across the mountains to catch the

train here.”

“All right, sir,” said the genial conductor. “Go right in and deliver

it. You look like you had a tussle to get here.”

“It was a close shave,” Gaston replied.

He stepped into the Atlanta sleeper and encountered the dusky potentate

who presided over its aisles.

The porter looked up from the shoes he was shining at Gaston’s

dishevelled hair and gave him no welcome.

Gaston dropped a half dollar into his hand and the porter dropped the

shoes and grinned a royal welcome. “Any ting I kin do fer ye boss?”

“Got any ladies on your car?”

“Yassir, three un ’em.”

“Young, or old?”

“One young un, en two ole uns.”

“Did the young lady get on at Independence?”

“Yassir.”

“Going to Atlanta?”

“Yassir.”

“Is she very beautiful?”

“Boss, she’s de purtiess young lady I eber laid my eyes’ on--but look

lak she been cryin’.”

“Then I want you to wake her. I must see her.”

“Lordy boss, I cain do dat. Hit ergin de rules.”

“But, I’m bound to see her. I’ve ridden eighteen miles across the

mountains and scratched my face all to pieces rushing through those

woods. I’ve a message of the utmost importance for her.”

“Cain do hit boss, hits ergin de rules. But you can go wake her yoself,

ef you’se er mind ter. I cain keep you fum it. She’s dar in number

seben.”

Gaston hesitated. “No, you must wake her,” he insisted, dropping another

half dollar in the porter’s hand.

The porter got up with a grin. He felt he must rise to a great occasion.

“Well, I des fumble roun’ de berth en mebbe she wake herse’f, en den I

tell her.”

Just then the electric bell overhead rang and the index pointed to 7.

“Dar now, dat’s her callin’ me, sho!”

He approached the berth. “What kin I do fur ye M’am?” he whispered.

“Porter, who is that you are talking to? It sounds like some one I

know.”

“Yassum, hit’s young gent name er Gaston, jump on bode at the water

station--say he got ‘portant message fur you.”

“Tell him I will see him in a moment.”

The porter returned with the message.

“You des wait in dar, in number one--hits not made up--twell she come,”

he added.

There was the soft rustle of a dressing gown--he sprang to his feet,

clasped her hand passionately, kissed it, and silently she took her

seat by his side. He still held her hand, and she pressed his gently

in response. He saw that she was crying, and his heart was too full for

words for a moment.

He looked long and wistfully in her face. In her dishevelled hair by the

dim light of the car he thought her more beautiful than ever. At last

she brushed the tears from her eyes and turned her face full on his with

a sad smile.

“My own dear love!” she sobbed, “I prayed that I might see you somehow

before I left. I was wide awake when I first heard the distant murmur of

your voice. Oh! I am so glad you came!” and she pressed his hand.

“I got your letter at ten-thirty”--

“Oh! that awful letter! How I cried over it. Papa made me write it, and

read and mailed it himself. But you saw my message between the lines?”

“Yes, and then I covered it with kisses. But what is the cause of this

sudden change of the General toward me? What have I done?”

“Please don’t ask me. I can’t tell you,” she sobbed lowering her face a

moment to his hand and kissing it. “Don’t ask me.”

“But, my dear, I must know. There can be no secrets between us.”

“My lips will never tell you. There have been a thousand slanders

breathed against you. I met them with fury and scorn, and no one

has dared repeat them in my hearing. I would not pollute my lips by

repeating one of them.”

“But who is their author?”

“I can not tell you. I promised Mama I wouldn’t. She loves you, and she

is on our side, but said it was best. Papa has made up his mind to break

our engagement forever. And I defied him. We had a scene. I didn’t know

I had the strength of will that came to me. I said some terrible

things to him, and he said some very cruel things to me. Poor Mama was

prostrated. Her heart is weak, and I only yielded at last as far as

I have because of her tears and suffering. I could not endure her

pleadings. So I promised to do as he wished for the present, leave for

Boston, and cease to write to you.”

“My love, I must know my enemy to meet him and face the issues he

raises. I can not be strangled in the dark like this.”

“You will find it out soon enough, I can not tell you,” she repeated. “I

only ask you to trust me, in this the darkest hour that has ever come to

my life. You will trust me, will you not, dear?” she pleaded.

“I have trusted you with my immortal soul. You know this.”

“Yes, yes, dear, I do. Then you can love and trust me without a letter

or a word between us until Mama is better and I can get her consent to

write to you? Oh, I never knew how tenderly and desperately I love you

until this shadow came over our lives! No power shall ever separate us

when the final test comes, unless you shall grow weary.”

“Do not say that,” he interrupted. “I love you with a love that has

brought me out of the shadows and shown me the face of God. Death shall

not bring weariness. But I dread with a sickening fear the efforts they

will make to plunge you into the whirl of frivolous society. I shall be

a lonely beggar a thousand miles away with not one friendly face near

you to plead my cause.”

“Hush!” she broke in upon him. “You are for me the one living presence.

You are always near--oh so near, closer than breathing!”

The roar of the train became sonorous with the vibration of a great

bridge. He started and looked at his watch.

“We are more than half way to the stop where I must leave you and

return.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Over a half hour. It does not seem two minutes. Only a few minutes more

face to face, and all life crowding for utterance! How can I choose what

to say, when my tongue only desires to say _I love you!_ Bend near and

whisper to me again your love vow,” he cried in trembling accents.

Close to his ear she placed her lips, holding fast his hand whispering

again and again, “My own dear love--unto the uttermost. In life, in

death, forever!”

He bent again and pressed his lips on her hand and she felt the hot

tears.

“And now, love, comes the hardest thing of all,” she sobbed, “I must

return to you my ring.”

“For God’s sake keep it!” he pleaded.

“No, I promised Mama for peace sake I would return it. She is very weak.

I could not dare to hurt her now with a broken promise. She may not live

long. I could never forgive myself. Keep it for me, dear, until I can

wear it.”

She placed it in his hand and it burnt like a red hot coal. He placed

it in an inside pocket next to his heart. It felt like a huge millstone

crushing him. A lump rose in his throat and choked him until he gasped

for breath.

She looked at him pathetically and saw his anguish.

“Come, my love,” she pleaded reproachfully, “you must not make it harder

for me. You are a man. You are stronger than I am. Love is more my whole

life than it can be yours. For this cruel thing I have said and done,

you may press on my lips another kiss. If I am disobedient to my

mother’s wishes God will forgive me.”

The train blew the long deep call for its hundred mile stop and they

both rose, he took her hands in his.

“You have promised not to write to me, dear, but I have made no promise.

I will write to you as often as I can send you a cheerful message,” he

said.

“It is so sweet of you!”

“You have the little love-token still?” he asked.

“Yes, in my bosom. I feel it warm and throbbing with your love, and it

shall not be taken from me in the grave!”

“That thought will cheer the darkest hours that can come and now, till

we meet again, we must say goodbye,” he said huskily.

She could make no response. He placed his arms around her, pressed her

close to his heart for a moment,--one long wistful kiss, and he was

gone.

He rode slowly back to Hambright. The eastern horizon was fringed with

the light of dawn when he reached the town. The more he had thought of

his position and the way the General had treated him in attempting to

settle his fate by a fiat of his own will without a hearing, the more it

roused his wrath, and nerved him for the struggle. They were to measure

wills in a contest’ that on his part had life for its stake.

“I ’ll give the old warrior the fight of his career!” he muttered as

he snapped his square jaw together with the grip of a vise. “My brains,

and every power with which nature has endowed me against his will and

his money. And for the dastard who has slandered me there will be a

reckoning.”

He was fighting in the dark but deep down in him he had a soldier’s

love for a fight. His soul rose to meet the challenge of this hidden foe

armed in the steel of a proud heritage of courage. He went to bed and

slept soundly for six hours.

CHAPTER XVI--THE MYSTERY OF PAIN

GASTON awoke next morning at half past ten o’clock with a dull

headache, and a sense of hopeless depression. His anger had cooled

and left him the pitiful consciousness of his loss. He slowly and

mechanically dressed.

When he buttoned his coat he felt something hard press against his

heart. It was the ring. He sat down on his bed and drew it from his

pocket. To his surprise he found coiled inside it and tied by a tiny

ribbon a ringlet of her hair. She had taken off the ring in her mother’s

presence and promised her to register and mail it in Atlanta. She had

bound this little piece of herself with it. He kissed it tenderly.

“My God, it is hard!” he groaned. And all the unshed tears that his

eager interest in her presence and his kindling anger the night before

had kept back now blinded him.

He did not notice his door softly open, nor know his mother was near

until she placed her hand gently on his shoulder. He looked up at her

face full of tender sympathy, and poured out to her his trouble in a

torrent of hot rebellious words.

“What have I done to be treated like a dog in this way?” he ended with a

voice trembling with protest.

“Perhaps you have offended the General in some way?”

“Impossible. I’ve been the soul of deference to him.”

“He’s a very proud man when his vanity is touched, are you sure of it?”

“As sure as that I live. No, some scoundrel has interfered between us

and in some unaccountable way covered me with infamy in the General’s

eyes.”

“But who could have done it?”

“I used my utmost power of persuasion to get it from her. But she would

not tell me. I have been stabbed in the dark.”

“Whom do you suspect? She has a dozen suitors.”

“There’s only one man among them who is capable of it, Allan McLeod.”

“Nonsense, child. He is not one of her suitors,” she protested warmly.

“Then why does he hang around the house with such dogged persistence?”

“He has always had the run of the house. His father committed him to the

General when he died on the battle field.”

Her face clouded, and then a great pity for his sorrow filled her heart.

She stooped and kissed him.

“Come, Charlie, you must cheer up. If she loves you, it’s everything.

You will win her.”

“But what rankles in my soul is that I have been treated like a dog. If

he objected to my poverty that was as evident the first day he welcomed

me to his house as the day he dictated to her his brutal message,

refusing me a word. He welcomed me to his house, and gave Miss Sallie

his approval of our love while I was there. There could be no mistake,

for she told me so.”

“I can’t understand it,” she interrupted.

“Now he suddenly shows me the door and refuses to allow me to even ask

an explanation. If he thinks he can settle my life for me in that simple

manner, I’ll show him that I ’ll at least help in the settlement.”

“Good. I like to see your eyes flash that fire. Don’t forget your

resolution. Your enemies are your best friends.” She said this with a

ring of her old aristocratic pride. “Come,” she continued, “I’ve a nice

warm breakfast saved for you. You don’t know how much good you have done

me in my lonely life.”

“Dear Mother!” he whispered pressing her hand. After breakfast he went

to his office and read over slowly the letters he had received from

Sallie, kissed them one by one, tied them up and sent them to her

mother. He took the ring out of his pocket and locked it in one of his

drawers.

“I can’t work to-day. It’s no use trying!” he muttered looking out of

his window. He locked his office and started down town with no purpose

except in the walk to try to fight his pain. Instinctively he found his

way to Tom Camp’s cottage.

“Tom, old boy, I’m in deep water. You’ve been there. I just want to feel

your hand.”

Tom was clearing up his kitchen with one hand and holding the other

tight over the wound near his spinal column. He had suffered untold

agonies through the night past and was suffering yet, but he never

mentioned it.

“You’ve just got your blues again!” Tom laughed.

“No, a devil has stabbed me in the back in the dark.” And he told Tom of

his love and his inexplicable trouble.

“So, so!” Tom mused with dancing eyes, “The General’s gal Miss Sallie!

My! my! but ain’t she a beauty! Next to my own little gal there she’s

the purtiest thing in No’th Caliny. And you’re her sweetheart, and she

told you she loved you?”

“Yes.”

“Then what ails you? Man, to hear that from such lips as she’s got’s

music enough for a year. You want the whole regimental band to be

playin’ all the time. If she loves you, that’s enough now to give you

nerve to fight all earth and hell combined.” Tom urged this with an

enthusiasm that admitted no reply.

Flora had climbed in his lap, and was going through his pockets to find

some candy.

“You didn’t bring me a bit this time!” she cried reproachfully.

“Honey, I forgot it,” he apologised.

“I don’t believe you love me any more, Charlie,” she declared placing

her hands on his cheeks and looking steadily into his eyes. “Am I your

sweetheart yet?” she asked.

“Of course, dearie, and about the only one I can depend on!”

“La, Charlie, your eyes are red!” she cried in surprise. “Do you cry?”

“Sometimes, when my heart gets too full.”

“Then, I ’ll kiss the red away!” she said as she softly kissed his

eyes.

“That’s good, Flora. It will make them better.’

“Now, Pappy,” she said triumphantly, “you say I’m getting too big to

cry, and I ain’t but eleven years old, and Charlie’s big as you and he

cries.”

Tom took her in his arms and smoothed his hand over her fair hair with

a tenderness that had in its trembling touch all the mystery of both

mother and father love in which his brooding soul had wrapped her.

Gaston returned home with lighter step. He met, as he crossed the

square, the Preacher who was waiting for him.

“Come here and sit down a minute. I’ve heard of your trouble. You have

my sympathy. But you ’ll come out all right. The oak that’s bent

by the storm makes a fibre fit for a ship’s rib. You can’t make steel

without white heat. God’s just trying your temper, boy, to see if

there’s anything in you. When he has tried you in the fire, and the pure

gold shines, he will call you to higher things.”

Gaston nodded his assent to this saying, “And yet, Doctor, none of us

like the touch of fire or the smell of the smoke of our clothes.”

“You are right. But it’s good for the soul. You are learning now that we

must face things that we don’t like in this world. I am older than you.

I will tell you something that you can’t really know until you have

lived through this. Love seems to you at this time the only thing in the

world. But it is not. My deepest sympathy is with Sallie. She’s already

pure gold. To such a woman love is the centre of gravity of all life.

This is not true of a strong normal man. The centre of gravity of a

strong man’s life as a whole is not in love and the emotions, but

in justice and intellect and their expression in the wider social

relations.”

“And that means that I must brace up for this political fight?”

“Exactly so. And it’s the best thing you can do for your love. Become a

power and you can coerce even a man of the General’s character.”

“You are right, Doctor. I had my mind about fixed on that course.”

“You will find the County Committee in session in the Clerk’s office

there now. They want to see you. I tell you to fight this coalition of

McLeod and the farmers every inch up to the last hour it is formed, and

if McLeod wins them, and the alliance is made, then fight to break it

every day and every hour and every minute till the votes are counted

out.”

Gaston went at once into the consultation with the Democratic county

committee.

CHAPTER XVII--IS GOD OMNIPOTENT?

AS Gaston left the Preacher, the Rev. Ephraim Fox approached. He was

the pastor of the Negro Baptist church, and had succeeded old Uncle Josh

at his death ten years before.

He bowed deferentially, and, hat in hand, stood close to the seat on

which Durham was still resting.

“How dis you doan come down ter our chu’ch en preach fur us no mo Brer’

Durham? We been er havin’ powerful times down dar lately, en de folks

wants you ter come en preach some mo.”

“I can’t do it, Eph.”

“What de matter, Preacher? We ain’t hu’t yo feelin’s.”

“No, not in a personal way, but you’ve got beyond me.”

“How’s dat?” asked Ephraim rolling his eyes.

“Well, as long as I preach to your folks about heaven and the glory

beyond this world, they shout and sweat and sing. And when I jump on

the old sinners in the Bible, they are in glee. They like to see the

fur fly. But the minute I pounce on them about stealing, and lying, and

drinking, and lust,--they don’t want to furnish any of the fur.”

“De Lawd, Preacher, hit’s des de same wid de white folks!” urged Ephraim

with a wink.

“That’s so. But the difference is your people talk back at me after the

meeting.”

“How’s dat?” Ephraim repeated.

“Why when I preach righteousness and judgment on the thief and accuse

them of stealing, I lose my wood, and my corn, and my chickens.”

Ephraim was silent a moment and then he smiled as he said, “Preacher,

dey ain’t er nigger in dis town doan lub you.”

“Yes, I know it. That’s why they steal from me so much.”

“Go long wid yo fun!” roared Ephraim. “You know you ain’t gone back on

us des cause some nigger tuck er stick er wood--deys sumfin’ else--you

cain fool me.”

“Well, you are right, that isn’t the main reason. There are others. You

turned a man out of your church for voting the Democratic ticket.”

“Yes, but Preacher,” interrupted Eph impatiently, “dat wuz er low-down

mean nigger. He didn’t hab no salvation nohow!”

“Then you keep a deacon in your church who served two terms in the

penitentiary.”

“But dat’s de bes’ deacon I got,” pleaded Eph sadly.

“Turn him out I tell you!”

“But dey all does little tings.”

“Turn ’em all out!”

“Den we ain’t got no chu’ch, en de shepherd ain’t got no flock ter tend,

er ter shear. You des splain how de Lawd tempers de win’ ter de shorn

lam’. Den ef I doan shear ’em, de win’ mought blow too hard on ’em.

En ef I doan keep ’em in de pen, how kin I shear ’em? I axes you

dat?”

The Preacher smiled and continued, “Then I’ve heard some ugly things

about you, Eph,” suddenly darting a piercing look straight into his

face.

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you. And I can’t afford to go into the pulpit with you any more.

In the old slavery days you were taught the religion of Christ. It

didn’t mean crime, and lust, and lying, and drinking, whatever it meant.

Your religion has come to be a stench. You are getting lower and lower.

You will be governed by no one. I can’t use force. I leave you alone.

You have gone beyond me.”

“But de Lawd lub a sinner, en his mercy enduref for-eber!” solemnly

grumbled Ephraim.

“In the old days,” persisted the Preacher, “I used to preach to your

people. I saw before me many men of character, carpenters, bricklayers,

wheelwrights, farmers, faithful home servants that loved their masters

and were faithful unto death. Now I see a cheap lot of thieves and

jailbirds and trifling women seated in high places. You have shown no

power to stand alone on the solid basis of character.”

“Why Brer’ Durham,” urged Eph in an injured voice, “I baptised inter de

kingdom over a hundred precious souls las’ year!”

“Yes, but what they needed was not a baptism of water. You negroes

need a racial baptism into truth, integrity, virtue, self-restraint,

industry, courage, patience, and purity of manhood and womanhood. I used

to be hopeful about you, but I’d just as well be frank with you,

I’ve given you up. I’ve said the grace of God was sufficient for all

problems. I don’t know now. I’m getting older and it grows darker to me.

I have come to believe there are some things God Almighty can not do.

Can God make a stone so big He can’t lift it? In either event, He is not

omnipotent. It looks like He did just that thing when He made the Negro.

Leave me out of your calculation, Ephraim.”

“Mus’ gib de nigger time, Preacher!” Eph muttered as he walked slowly

away.

When Gaston emerged from the court house, the Preacher joined him and

they walked home to the hotel together.

“What did the two farmers on your committee think of the chances of

preventing the Alliance from joining the negroes?”

“Not much of them. They say we can’t do anything with them when the test

comes, unless we will endorse their scheme of issuing money on corn and

pumpkins and potatoes stored in a government barn. If it comes to that,

I will not prostitute my intellect by advocating any such measure on the

floor of our convention. We stand for one thing at least, the supremacy

of Anglo-Saxon civilisation. I had rather be beaten by the negroes and

their allies this time on such an issue.”

“But, my boy, if McLeod and his negroes get control of this state for

four years, they can so corrupt its laws and its electorate, they may

hold it a quarter of a century. We must fight to the last ditch.”

“I draw the line at pumpkin leaves for money,” insisted Gaston.

It was but ten days to the meeting of the Democratic state convention,

and they were coming together divided in opinion, and at sea as to their

policy, with a united militant Farmers’ Alliance demanding the uprooting

of the foundations of the economic world, and a hundred thousand negro

voters grinning at this opportunity to strike their white foes, while

McLeod stood in the background smiling over the certainty of his

triumph.

CHAPTER XVIII--THE WAYS OF BOSTON

WHEN Helen Lowell reached Boston from her visit with Sallie Worth,

she found her father in the midst of his political campaign. The Hon.

Everett Lowell was the representative of Congress from the Boston

Highlands district. His home was an old fashioned white Colonial house

built during the American Revolution.

He was not a man of great wealth, but well-to-do, a successful

politician, enthusiastic student, a graduate of Harvard, and he had

always made a specialty of championing the cause of the “freedmen.” He

was a chronic proposer of a military force bill for the South.

His family was one of the proudest in America. He had a family tree

five hundred years old--an unbroken line of unconquerable men who held

liberty dearer than life. He believed in the heritage of good honest

blood as he believed in blooded horses. His home was furnished in

perfect taste, with beautiful old rosewood and mahogany stuff that had

both character and history. On the walls hung the stately portraits of

his ancestors representative of three hundred years of American life. He

never confused his political theories about the abstract rights of

the African with his personal choice of associates or his pride in his

Anglo-Saxon blood. With him politics was one thing, society another.

His pet hobby, which combined in one his philanthropic ideals and his

practical politics, was of late a patronage he had extended to young

George Harris, the bright mulatto son of Eliza and George Harris whose

dramatic slave history had made their son famous at Harvard.

This young negro was a speaker of fair ability and was accompanying

Lowell on his campaign tours of the district, making speeches for his

patron, who had obtained for him a clerk’s position in the United States

Custom House. Harris was quite a drawing card at these meetings. He had

a natural aptitude for politics; modest, affable, handsome, and almost

white, he was a fine argument in himself to support Lowell’s political

theories, who used him for all he was worth as he had at the previous

election.

Harris had become a familiar figure at Lowell’s home in the spacious

library, where he had the free use of the books, and frequently he

dined with the family, when there at dinner time hard at work on some

political speech or some study for a piece of music.

Lowell had met his daughter at the depot behind his pair of Kentucky

thoroughbreds. This daughter, his only child, was his pride and joy. She

was a blonde beauty, and her resemblance to her father was remarkable.

He was a widower, and this lovely girl, at once the incarnation of his

lost love and so fair a reflection of his being, had ruled him with

absolute sway during the past few years.

He was laughing like a boy at her coming.

“Oh! my beauty, the sight of your face gives me new life!” he cried

smiling with love and admiration.

“You mustn’t try to spoil me!” she laughed.

“Did you really have a good time in Dixie?” he whispered.

“Oh! Papa, such a time!” she exclaimed shutting her eyes as though she

were trying to live it over again.

“Really?”

“Beaux, morning, noon and night,--dancing, moonlight rides, boats

gliding along the beautiful river and mocking birds singing softly their

love-song under the window all night!”

“Well you did have romance,” he declared.

“Yes,” she went on “and such people, such hospitality--oh! I feel as

though I never had lived before.”

“My dear, you mustn’t desert us all like that,” he protested.

“I can’t help it, I’m a rebel now.”

“Then keep still till the campaign’s over!” he warned in mock fear.

“And the boys down there,” she continued, “they are such boys! Time

doesn’t seem to be an object with them at all. Evidently they have never

heard of our uplifting Yankee motto ‘_Time is money._’ And such knightly

deference! such charming old fashioned chivalrous ways!”

“But, dear, isn’t that a little out of date?”

“How staid and proper and busy Boston seems! I know I am going to be

depressed by it.”

“I know what’s the matter with you!” he whistled.

“What?” she slyly asked.

“One of those boys.”

“I confess. Papa, he’s as handsome as a prince.”

“What does he look like?”

“He is tall, dark, with black hair, black eyes, slender, graceful, all

fire and energy.”

“What’s his name?”

“St. Clare--Robert St. Clare. His father was away from home. He’s a

politician, I think.”

“You don’t say! St. Clare. Well of all the jokes! His father is my

Democratic chum in the House--an old fire-eating Bourbon, but a capital

fellow.”

“Did you ever see _him?_”

“No, but I’ve had good times with his father. He used to own a hundred

slaves. He’s a royal fellow, and pretty well fixed in life for a

Southern politician. I don’t think though I ever saw his boy. Anything

really serious?”

“He hasn’t said a word--but he’s coming to see me next week.”

“Well things are moving, I must say!”

“Yes, I pretended I must consult you, before telling him he could come.

I didn’t want to seem too anxious. I’m half afraid to let him wander

about Boston much, there are too many girls here.”

Her father laughed proudly and looked at her. “I hope you will find him

all your heart most desires, and my congratulations on your first love!”

“It will be my last, too,” she answered seriously.

“Ah! you’re too young and pretty to say that!”

“I mean it,” she said earnestly with a smile trembling on her lips.

Her father was silent and pressed her hand for an answer. As they

entered the gate of the home, they met young Harris coming out with some

books under his arm. He bowed gracefully to them and passed on.

“Oh! Papa, I had forgotten all about your fad for that young negro!”

“Well, what of it, dear?”

“You love me very much, don’t you?” she asked tenderly. “I’m going to

ask you to be inconsistent, for my sake.”

“That’s easy. I’m often that for nobody’s sake. Consistency is only the

terror of weak minds.”

“I’m going to ask you to keep that young negro out of the house when my

Southern friends are here. After my sweetheart comes I expect Sallie

and her mother. I wouldn’t have either of them to meet him here in our

library and especially in our dining-room for anything on earth!”

“Well, you have joined the rebels, haven’t you?”

“You know I never did like negroes any way,” she continued. “They always

gave me the horrors. Young Harris is a scholarly gentleman, I know. He

is good-looking, talented, and I’ve played his music for him sometimes

to please you, but I can’t get over that little kink in his hair, his

big nostrils and full lips, and when he looks at me, it makes my flesh

creep.”

“Certainly, my darling, you don’t need to coax me. The Lowells, I

suspect, know by this time what is due to a guest. When your guests

come, our home and our time are theirs. If eating meat offends, we

will live on herbs. I ’ll send Harris down to the other side of the

district and keep him at work there until the end of the campaign. My

slightest wish is law for him.”

“You see, Papa,” she went on, “they never could understand that negro’s

easy ways around our house, and I know if he were to sit down at our

table with them they would walk out of the dining-room with an excuse of

illness and go home on the first train.”

“And yet,” returned her father lifting her from the carriage, “their

homes were full of negroes were they not?”

“Yes, but they know their place. I’ve seen those beautiful Southern

children kiss their old black ‘Mammy.’ It made me shudder, until I

discovered they did it just as I kiss Fido.”

“And this a daughter of Boston, the home of Garrison and Sumner!” he

exclaimed.

“I’ve heard that Boston mobbed Garrison once,” she observed.