XX

Ann had just closed her gate, and was turning towards her door, when she

heard a sound on the porch, and a man stepped down into the yard. It was

Luke King.

"Why, hello, Aunt Ann!" he cried out, cheerily. "Been driving hogs out

of your field I'll bet. You need me here with my dog Pomp, who used to

be such a dandy at that job."

"Oh, it's you, Luke!" Ann cried, trying to collect herself, after the

start he had given her.

"Yes, I didn't mean to come at this hour of night, but as I was riding

by just now, on my way home to see my mother, who is not exactly well, I

noticed your door open, and not seeing you in sight, I hitched my horse

up the road a piece and came back and watched at the gate. Then not

hearing any sound, and knowing you never go to bed with your door open,

I went in. Then you bet I _was_ scared. Things do once in a while happen

here in the mountains, and--"

"Oh, well, nothing was the matter with me," Ann smiled. "Besides, I can

take care of myself."

"I know that, too," he said. "I'm glad to get this chance to talk to

you. I understand that mother is not as ill as they thought she was, and

I'll have to catch the first train back to Atlanta in the morning. I'm

doing pretty well down there, Aunt Ann."

"I know it, Luke, and I'm glad," Ann said, her mind still on the things

she had just witnessed.

"But you haven't yet forgiven me for giving my people that farm. I can

see that by your manner."

"I thought it was foolish," she replied.

"But that's because you simply don't know all about it, Aunt Ann," he

insisted. "I don't want to make you mad again; but really I would do

that thing over again and again. It has helped me more than anything I

ever did. You see, you've been thinking on one line all your life and,

of late years, I have been on quite another. You are a great woman, Aunt

Ann, but you still believe that the only way to fight is to hit back.

You have been hitting back for years, and may keep on at it for a while,

but you'll see the truth one of these days, and you'll actually love

your neighbors--even your vilest enemies. You'll come to see--your big

brain will simply _have_ to grasp it--that your retaliation, being

obedient to bad life-laws, is as blamable as the antagonism of your

enemies. The time will come when your very suffering will be the medium

through which you will view and pity their sordid narrowness. Then

you'll appear to them in their long darkness as a blazing light; they

will look up to you as a thing divine; they will fall blinded at your

feet; they will see your soul as it has always been, pure white and

dazzlingly bright, and look upon you as the very impersonation of--"

"Huh, don't be a fool!" Ann sank on the edge of the porch, her eyes

fixed angrily on the ground. "You are ignorant of what you are talking

about--as ignorant as a new-born baby. You are a silly dreamer, boy.

Your life is an easy, flowery one, and you can't look into a dark,

rugged one like mine. If God is at the head of all things, he put evil

here as well as the good, and to-night I'm thankful for the evil. I'm

tasting it, I tell you, and it's sweet, sweet, sweet!"

"Ah, I know," King sighed. "You are trying to make yourself believe you

are glad Mrs. Hemingway is in such agony over her affliction."

"I didn't say anything about her affliction." Ann stared half fearfully

into his honest face.

"But I know you well enough to see that's what you are driving at." King

sat down beside her, and for a moment rested his hand on her shoulder.

"But it's got to end. It shall not go on. I am talking to you, Aunt Ann,

with the voice of the New Thought that is sweeping the face of the world

to-day--only that mountain in the east and that one in the west have

dammed its flow and kept it from this benighted valley. I did not intend

yet to tell you the great overwhelming secret of my life, but I want to

do it to-night. You love me as a son. I know that, and I love you as a

mother. You are in a corner--in the tightest place you've ever been in

in all your life. I'm going to ask you to do something for my sake that

will tear your very soul out by the roots. You'll have to grant my wish

or refuse--if you refuse, I shall be miserable for life."

"Luke, what's the matter with you?" Ann shook his hand from its

resting-place on his shoulder, and with bated breath leaned towards him.

King was silent for a moment, his brows drawn together, his head

lowered, his strong, manly hands clasped between his knees. A buggy

passed along the road. In it sat Fred Masters and another man. Both were

smoking and talking loudly.

"Well, listen, and don't break in, Aunt Ann," King said, in a calm,

steady voice. "I'm going to tell you something you don't yet know. I'm

going to tell you of my first and only great love."

"Oh, is _that_ it?" Ann took a deep breath of relief. "You've been roped

in down there already, eh? Well, I thought that would come, my boy, with

the papers full of you and your work."

"Wait, I told you not to break in," he said. "I don't believe I'm a

shallow man. To me the right kind of love is as eternal as the stars,

and every bit as majestic. Mine, Aunt Ann, began years ago, here in the

mountains, on the banks of these streams, in the shadow of these green

hills. I loved her when she was a child. I went far off and met women of

all sorts and ranks, and in their blank faces I always saw the soulful

features of my child sweetheart. I came back here--_here_, do you

understand, to find her the loveliest full-grown human flower that ever

bloomed in God's spiritual sunshine."

"You mean--great God, you mean--? Look here, Luke King." Ann drew her

body erect, her eyes were flashing fire. "Don't tell me it is Virginia

Hemingway. Don't, don't--"

"That's who it is, and no one else this side of heaven!" he cried, in an

impassioned voice. "That's who it is, and if I lose her--if I lose her

my life will be a total failure. I could never rise above it, _never_!"

Their eyes met in a long, steady stare.

"You love that girl!" Ann gasped; "_that girl!_"

"With all my soul and body," he answered, fervidly. "Life, work,

success, power, nothing under high heaven can knock it out of me. She

has got to be mine, and you must never interfere, either. I love you as

a son loves his mother, and you must not take her from me. You must do

more--you must help me. I've never asked many things of you. I ask only

this one--give her to me, help me to win her. That's all. Now we

understand each other. She's the whole world to me. She's young; she may

be thoughtless; her final character is just forming; but she is destined

to be the grandest, loveliest woman on the face of the earth. She is to

be my wife, Aunt Ann--_my wife_!"

Ann's head sank till her massive brow touched her crossed arms; he could

see that she was quivering from head to foot. There was a long pause,

then the woman looked up, faint defiance struggling in her face.

"You _are_ a fool," she said. "A great, big, whimpering fool of a man.

She's the only one, eh? Jane Hemingway's daughter is an angel on earth,

above all the rest. Huh! and just because of her pretty face and slim

body and high head. Huh, oh, you _are_ a fool--an idiot, if there ever

was one!"

"Stop, talk sense, if you _will_ talk," he said, sternly, his eyes

flashing. "Don't begin to run her down. I won't stand it. I know what

she is. I know she was made for me!"

"She's not a whit better than the average," Ann retorted, her fierce

eyes fixed on his face. "She's as weak as any of the rest. Do you

know--do you know--" Ann looked away from him. "Do you know Langdon

Chester has his eye on her, that he is following her everywhere, meeting

her unbeknownst to her old mammy?"

"Yes, I know that, too," King surprised her with the statement; "and

between you and me, that as much as my mother's sickness made me lay

down my work and come up here to-night. It is the crisis of my whole

life. She is at the turning-point of hers, just as you were at yours

when you were a young and happy girl. She might listen to him, and love

him; it is as natural for her to believe in a well-acted lie, as it is

for her to be good and pure. Listen and don't get mad--the grandest

woman I ever knew once trusted in falseness, and suffered. Virginia

might, too; she might enter the life-darkness that you were led into by

sheer faith in mankind, and have a life of sorrow before her. But if it

should happen, Aunt Ann, my career in the right way would end."

"You wouldn't let a--a thing like that--" Ann began, anxiously, "a thing

like that ruin your whole life, when--"

"Wouldn't I? You don't know me. These two hands would be dyed to the

bone with the slow death-blood of a certain human being, and I would go

to the gallows with both a smile and a curse. That's why it's my crisis.

I don't know how far it has gone. I only know that I want to save her

from--yes, from what you've been through, and lay my life and energy at

her feet."

"Jane Hemingway's _daughter_!" Ann Boyd groaned.

"Yes, Jane Hemingway's daughter. You hate her, I know, with the

unreasonable hatred that comes from despising her mother, but you've got

to help me, Aunt Ann. You put me where I am, in education and standing,

and you must not see me pulled down."

"How could I help you, even--even--oh, you don't know, you don't know

that at this very minute--"

"Oh yes, he may be with her right now, for all I know," King broke in,

passionately. "He may be pouring his lies into her confiding ear at this

very minute, as you say, but Fate would not be cruel enough to let them

harm her. You must see her, Aunt Ann. For my sake, you must see her. You

will know what to say. One word from you would open her eyes, when from

me it would be an offence. She would know that you knew; it would shock

her to her very soul, but it would--if she's actually in danger--save

her; I know her well enough for that; it would save her."

"You are asking too much of me, Luke," Ann groaned, almost in piteous

appeal. "I can't do it--I just _can't_!"

"Yes, you will," King said. "You have got a grand soul asleep under that

crust of sordid hatred and enmity, and it will awake, now that I have

laid bare my heart. You, knowing the grim penalty of a false step in a

woman's life, will not sit idle and see one of the gentlest of your kind

blindly take it. You can't, and you won't. You'll save her for me.

You'll save me, too--save me from the fate of a murderer."

He stood up. "I'm going now," he finished. "I must hurry on home. I

won't have time to see you in the morning before I leave, but you now

know what I am living for. I am living only for Virginia Hemingway. Men

and women are made for each other, we were made for each other. She may

fancy she cares for that man, but she doesn't, Aunt Ann, any more than

you now care for--but I won't say it. Good-bye. You are angry now, but

you will get over it, and--and, you will stand by me, and by her."