STEVE’S response to Stella’s call was prompt.
He entered the library with heavy, firm step, a flush of triumph on his
sleek handsome animal face.
“He has betrayed the Klan to you?” he asked with eagerness.
“Sit down,” she responded coolly, an accent of resentment rising in her
voice. “Before I answer that important question, I’ve something I wish to
ask you.”
“Anything you like,” he answered suavely. “And I want the truth,” she
continued, with increasing emphasis.
“I’ll give it to you if it’s in my power.”
“You haven’t done it always,” was the firm retort.
“You wish to know about the men on whom I rely to execute justice on
John Graham?”
“Yes, who are they?”
“Members of the Klan from the hills--innocent men on whom he wreaked his
vengeance in the most brutal and inhuman manner without a trial.”
“You are sure they are members of the Klan?”
“Certainly.”
“They will come to arrest and try him, dressed in the same costumes the
men wore the night my father was killed?”
“Yes.”
“Have you hired these men to assassinate him?” she suddenly asked,
piercing Steve with her great eyes.
“My God, no!” he protested.
“What will they do?”
“Why, try him by his own laws, of course,” Steve answered vaguely.
“What laws?”
“The law of the Order which forbids an officer to abuse his power by
using it for personal ends as he did in the murder of the Judge.”
“Why have they not tried him before?”
“The feeling against him was not strong enough.”
“And now?”
“If he has betrayed the Klan, by his own laws he can be torn limb from
limb, so long as a shred of its power remains.”
“He could not be put to death for telling the secrets of the Klan to the
woman he loves?”
“Yes.”
“And he knows this?”
“Of course.”
“A big, glorious, beautiful thing, a love like that, isn’t it?” she
cried with strange elation, tears flashing from her eyes.
“From the woman’s point of view, perhaps it is--from that of the man
whose life he puts in peril, hardly.”
“But from the woman’s point of view! yes--and judged by her standard,
cowards who hedge and lie and fear to do such things don’t measure very
high beside him--do they? I’m afraid, Steve, your love is a weak thing.
It would be a pity to kill a man who would dare death to please the
fancy of the woman he loves--now, wouldn’t it?”
“Such a man, for example, as he who sneaked under cover of the night
and struck your father dead at your feet without a chance to defend
himself,” Steve sneered.
“Yes! That’s the hideous thought that strangles me!” she cried, her
breast heaving with a tumult of emotion, her breath coming in gasps of
passion.
“You are going to falter and give up?” he asked indignantly.
Stella ignored his question and said in even tones as though talking to
herself:
“I had intended to have the United States marshals arrest him dressed in
the Klan costume at their meeting place.”
“And now?” Steve broke in eagerly.
“I don’t know what to do. I’ll be frank with you, Steve--I never
expected to keep my promise to marry you--I never really expected to
face such a choice. There are times when I like you. There’s evil in me,
as there is in you--cruelty, pride, selfishness--I feel our kinship. But
I don’t love you, and the closer I get to you the less I love you.”
“You’ll learn to love me--I’ll wait,” he broke in.
“The reason why I like you less and less,” she went on, “is that I
feel other forces in me which are not evil--big, generous impulses, and
aspirations for things beautiful and true and good that you have never
felt and could never understand.”
“Which some other man might develop,” he snapped. “Well, play the baby
act then, and give it all up.”
“No, I’ve made up my mind to have the life of the man who took my
father’s. It’s the one supreme passion which dominates my soul and
body.”
“He has confessed to you then?” Steve cried breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“Where will the men meet you?”
“At Inwood immediately after dark, day after to-morrow,” she answered
firmly.
“It’s too early. Nine o’clock is better. The men will have time for
careful preparation.”
“I’ll be with him in the basement. He will be in the Klan costume; I
wish him arrested and tried in that.”
“It shall be exactly as you wish,” said Steve, his eyes sparkling with
triumph. “And your signal to the men?”
“Will be a light in the window of the basement.”
“I understand--Inwood--nine o’clock at night, day after to-morrow.”
Stella’s answer was scarcely a whisper:
“Yes.”