STELLA was putting the last touches to a perfect toilet before meeting
Steve Hoyle who was waiting impatiently below. She had given him the
sign for which he had long prayed, her permission for the formal renewal
of his suit. They had remained friends on condition that he keep silent
on the subject until she gave him permission to speak. She had done
this in the most delicate way in the note of reply she had sent in the
afternoon to his request for permission to call.
She had determined to take Steve by storm to-night. The secret on which
her heart was set she counted already within her grasp, yet she would
leave no stone unturned, neglect no trick in all the known realm of
woman’s art to make her victory absolute.
Her refusal to put on black at her father’s funeral, or wear it since,
and her declaration that his death was not the act of God but of the
devil, had shocked the tradition-loving Southern people beyond measure.
Maggie had lost no time in telling her their comments. She heard
them with contempt and proceeded to shock her critics still worse by
establishing herself permanently in the great lonely house with only
Aunt Julie Ann as her guardian.
Her whole being was fused into a single deathless purpose--to take the
life of the man who had killed her father. She would stop at no means to
accomplish this end, and she would treat with scorn every convention of
society which might interfere.
She slowly descended the winding stairs to-night before Steve’s
enraptured gaze, dressed in pure white with full train. A single deep
red rose was set in her black hair. Her arms were bare and their beauty
was perfect--starting with the tiniest wrists and swelling into full
voluptuous splendour above the dimpled elbows. She had a way of moving
them when she walked which was modest yet subtle in sensuous suggestion.
Steve watched her spellbound. She placed her hand in his with a tender
smile, the brown eyes watching the effects of her beauty with quiet
triumph.
She allowed Steve to silently lead her to the old davenport under the
stairs and take his seat by her side.
“You meant what your letter implied?” he asked eagerly.
“I did,” was the firm answer.
“It seemed too good to be true, dear, yet I felt sure that you would
need me in this crisis of your life.”
“I do need you. I wonder if you will prove wanting when put to the
test?”
“Try me!” he boldly challenged.
“You are sure that you love me with a love that will endure through good
and evil, through life and death, through every test?”
She leaned close, her eyes searching Steve’s soul.
The man drew a deep breath and his hand grasped hers with fierce
passion.
“I love you beyond the power of words to tell--I worship you!” he cried,
attempting instinctively to draw her into his arms.
“Yes I know,” she answered, lifting her hand in warning, “you love me
that way--I don’t say it displeases me--I have a soul and I have a
body too. There’s something big, fierce, and strong in you, Steve, that
always drew me--that draws me to you to-night--but I want to know if
your love goes deeper than the body; if it’s big enough, true enough to
dare anything in this world or the next for the woman you love?”
“Yes!” he cried.
“You love me better than money?”
“Yes!”
“Better than power?”
“Yes!”
“Better than your own life?”
“Yes!” he whispered, crushing her hand in his.
“Suppose I should put you to a test and you should fail?”
“With your eyes calling me I’d dare the terrors of hell!”
She took both his hands, fixed her eyes on his until their warm brown
light enfolded him with tenderness:
“Give me the name of the Chief of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina,”
she whispered.
Steve’s face went white, and he stammered:
“Why--why--my dear--how--can--I? I don’t know him. It’s impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible to the man who loves me if I desire it,” she
answered, firmly holding Steve with her eyes dilated to extraordinary
size under the tension of her deep emotion.
He turned from her gaze, the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“But, Stella, my dear, I’m not a member of the Klan.”
She dropped his hand, sprang to her feet, and looked at him a moment.
“You are lying!”
“I swear I’m telling you the truth,” he cried, eagerly attempting to
regain her hand.
She turned from him with contempt. She saw too late that she had
overplayed the part. She had been too eager, too sure. He was a greater
coward than she had suspected.
“But why should you ask such a thing of me?” he stammered.
“You know why.”
“I haven’t the remotest idea.”
“Coward!” she hissed, turning suddenly. “You know that I wish to hang
this man for the murder of my father.”
“If the Government of the United States with its army and navy and its
millions cannot find him--am I a coward because I tell you that I do not
know his name?”
“Yes.”
“In God’s name why?” he pleaded.
“I know that you are a member of the Klan.”
“Upon my soul and honour I swear that I am not!”
“Have you either soul or honour?”
“I won’t quarrel with you, dear; you are overwrought and crushed by this
tragedy. You don’t mean what you say.”
“I do mean it!” she fiercely cried.
“Then you’ll live to regret it,” he answered, recovering his composure.
“I’ll do anything within human reason. You must not ask the impossible.”
“Then you will help me to find this man?”
“To the limit of my power.”
“Why say to the limit of my power? I hate a man who fences, squirms and
lies when face to face with a test of his manhood! Will you help me find
this man? Yes or no?”
“Yes.”
“That’s better.”
“But tell me,” he said, watching her with increasing reserve and
cunning. “Whom do you suspect?”
“John Graham.”
Steve’s eyes flashed.
“And what is your programme when you have established the fact?”
“The Attorney General has promised to hang him within thirty days.”
“With all due respect to the Attorney General--he can’t do it.”
“Why not?”
“We are living under conditions of revolution. No jury can be found who
will convict him. There’s but one way.”
“What do you mean?” Stella asked, lowering her voice.
“That beyond a doubt John Graham inspired this crime.”
“You believe it?” she broke in fiercely.
“I’m sure of it. His hatred of the Judge had become a mania. He used the
Klan as the cloak of his hired assassin.”
“The Klan decreed his death,” said Stella sternly.
“John Graham decreed it.”
“What do you propose?” she asked, again coming close to Steve.
“To have him executed by the Klan itself!”
“And yet you are not a member?” she asked with a smile.
“I am in touch with men who are.”
“How could his execution be brought about?”
“Ask him the question you put to me.”
“And if he tells?”
“He will forfeit his life.”
Stella’s eyes rested a moment on the chair in which her father fell
the night of his death. She turned and gazed into Steve’s face with
a strange absent expression in her eyes as though they were seeing a
picture which had etched itself in fire on her soul.
“I’m going to cultivate Mr. Graham’s acquaintance,” she slowly said.
“I’ll learn from his own lips if he is the leader of the Ku Klux Klan.”
“And if you find that he is?”
“I may hold you to your pledge!”
“And on the day he is executed.”
“I will marry you!”