I'm sure he loves her. Anybody would know it that heard him talk; besides she is pretty-you know that, Ann. She is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen anywhere. They looked fine, too, walking side by side.

They say he's a spendthrift and got bad habits, but maybe his folks will be glad to have him settle down with such a sensible girl if she is poor. She'll keep him straight. I'd rather nothing is said about where Jane's money is coming from, Ann. That seems to be their secret, and I have no right to circulate it."

"I'll not talk it," Ann said. "It will be safe with me."

When the widow had left, Ann became a changed creature in outward appearance. She stood on the porch till her guest had disappeared in the dusk, and then she paced the floor of her sitting-room in a spasm of ecstasy, now and then shaken by a hearty laugh.

"I see through him," she chuckled. "He is trying to ease his dirty conscience by paying money down. It's a slick trick-on a par with a promise to marry. He's telling his filthy soul that he's saving her mother's life. The girl's as blind as a bat-the average woman can only see one thing at a time; she's simply bent on getting that money, and thinks of nothing else. But, Jane Hemingway-old lady-I've got you where I want you at last. It won't be long before your forked tongue will be tied fast in a knot. You can't keep on after me publicly for what is in your own dirty flesh. And when you know the truth you'll know, too, that it all come about to save your worthless life. You'll get down on your knees then and beg the Lord to have mercy on you. Maybe you'll remember all you've done against me from your girl-days till now as you set with your legs dangling in the grave. Folks will shun your house, too, unless you rid it of contagion. But you _bet I'll_ call. I'll send in _my_ card. Me'n' you'll be on a level then, and we'll owe it to the self-same high and mighty source."

Ann suddenly felt a desire for the open air, as if the very walls of her house checked the pleasurable out-pourings of her triumph, and she went outside and strode up and down in the yard, fairly aflame with joy. All at once she paused; she was confronting the sudden fear that she might be fired by a false hope. Virginia, it was true, had agreed to go to Chester's at the appointed hour, but might she not, in calmer moments, when removed from Langdon's persistent influence, think better of it and stay at home? Ah, yes, there was the chance that the girl might fail to keep the appointment, and then-

Cold from head to foot, Ann went back into the cottage and stood before the fire looking at the clock. It was fifteen minutes of ten, and ten was the hour. Why not make sure of the outcome? Why not, indeed? It was a good idea, and would save her days and days of suspense.

Going out, Ann trudged across the dewy meadow, her coa.r.s.e skirt clutched in her hands till she stood in one of the brier-grown fence-corners near the main road. Here, quite hidden from the open view of any one pa.s.sing, by the shade of a young mulberry-tree, whose boughs hung over her like the ribs of an umbrella, she stood and waited. She must have been there ten minutes or more, her tense gaze on the road leading to Jane Hemingway's cottage, when she was sure she heard soft footsteps coming towards her. Yes, it was some one, but could it be-? It was a woman's figure; she could see that already, and, yes, there could be no mistake now-it _was_ Virginia. There was no one in the neighborhood quite so slight, light of foot, and erect. Ann suddenly crouched down till she could peer between the lower rails of the fence. She held her breath while the girl was pa.s.sing, then she clasped her hands over her knees and chuckled. "It's _her_!" she whispered. "It's her, and she's headed for everlasting doom if ever a creature walked into a net of d.a.m.nation."

When Virginia was thirty or forty yards away, Ann cautiously climbed over the fence, almost swearing in impatience as she pulled her skirts from the detaining clutch of thorns, briers, and splinters, and with her head down she followed.

"I'll make dead sure," she said, between pressed lips. "This is a matter I don't want to have a shadow of a doubt about."

Presently, the long, white palings comprising the front fence at the Chesters' appeared into view, and the dark, moving figure of the girl outlined against it could be seen more clearly.

Virginia moved onward till she had reached the gate. The smooth, steel latch clicked; there was a rip of darkness in the ribbon of white; the hinges creaked; the gate closed with a slam, as if it had slipped from nerveless fingers, and the tall boxwood bordering the walk to the door of the old house swallowed Virginia from the sight of her grim pursuer.

"That will do me," Ann chuckled, as she turned back, warm with content in every vein. On her rapid walk to her house she allowed her fancy to play upon scores of situations in which the happening of that night would bring dire humiliation and shame to her enemy. Ann well knew what was coming; she had only to hold the alb.u.m of her own life open and let the breeze of chance turn the pages to view what Jane Hemingway was to look upon later.

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, h.e.l.lo, 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d's spiritual sunshine."

"You mean-great G.o.d, 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 impa.s.sioned 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 ma.s.sive 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."