Crouching on the floor, her face buried in her arms, alone in this small hour, Belle-Ann was crying in the half gloom. Alone with some great grief that was undoing her. Her shoulders shook with its racking on-coming. Then again, its vortex of agony swept across her lips in piteous supplicatory sobs, vibrating in the stillness like the bleating of a dazed, lost creature enmeshed in the tentacles of some merciless destroyer.

Motionless, Miss Worth stood for a minute, her mind divided by two opposing conjectures. One, a deplorable apprehension that this girl she had come to love so dearly was a.s.sailed by some new sudden visitation of suffering. The other, a keen, pungent joy that perhaps that for which she herself had striven and labored for months was coming to pa.s.s. Maybe after all the blighting soul-fistula she had so deftly and tirelessly probed for had burst and its poisonous feculence was now eddying away.

Until a month ago Belle-Ann had, with the natural reluctance and reserved suspicion of the mountain-born, withstood and parried all of Miss Worth's gentle approaches to discover her secret woe. The mountain spirit nurtures a bitter antipathy for revelations. Then a day came when this dear friend broke through the barrier, and Belle-Ann poured out her whole life to Miss Worth. There was no detail or memory that she did not vividly picture before Miss Worth's understanding. Then Miss Worth, knowing where to look, reached out with all the potent power of her subjugating diplomacy to extirpate the roots of this melancholy plant that grew and threatened to overrun a beautiful soul.

Miss Worth hurried across the room and spoke her name. With distress undisguised, Belle-Ann lifted her tear-wet face.

"Oh!--I can't--I cannot endure it longer," she declared between the tremulous sobs that convulsed her.

Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room.

"But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only turns the a.s.sa.s.sin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh--Oh, dear Miss Worth--you can never understand--you can never know what this is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered this as I have--if you could see what I have--if you could see now--this minute--what I see--thah--thah----" she ended in stifling utterances, as she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor.

Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace to her for a time.

Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she reached the door she turned back.

"Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you--I shall not retire until you come. If you see the light--come to me--I'll be waiting and praying, too."

CHAPTER XXVI

BELLE-ANN HAS A VISION

After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a t.i.tanic, stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence.

And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds circulated, charged with pigments and prismed l.u.s.tres; shot, lanced and plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out from this spectacle of molten glory, a mult.i.tudinous horde emerged, trooping through its liquid opalescence.

And the angels reveled, flapping their wings in the starlight to the throbbing rhythm of ten thousand silver lutes. And out beneath the proscenium arch of this fantastic gilded dream, an archangel rode and a beloved face looked down upon the girl. It was a chaste, smiling face; a sacrament of love, replete with amity and forgiveness.

And the knowing eyes were diademed with a specific message. And the vision bore straight down to earth upon her; and she lifted up her arms to meet it. And the whir of its pinions awoke her. She slipped out of bed and stood erect, her bosom lifting and her eyes looking through the dark after this receding apparition.

And there as she stood alone in that small hour of the night, a great Presence came into the room and an unseen hand reached out and touched her soul.

Beside the little white bed Belle-Ann bent her knee and bowed down her head until the curls spread out on the coverlet. And lo! a sword of divine light dipped down and penetrated the cryptic catacomb hidden in her heart and pierced its gnawing, pillaging tenant, and killed her ill, uncouth creed; and drove her lingering sorrow out, purging her being free of the chaotic fires of revenge-thirst that was slowly but surely searing her soul.

And when she rose up, a plenipotent strength of understanding had lifted her crying spirit out and up to a sanctuary of truth; and she stood in the early hour of coming day, serene and triumphant, with the l.u.s.tre of a conquering light in her purposeful eyes, and faced a new world.

It was dawn. Amid a theatre of opalescent clouds reefed in the east, the sun diffused its glory, and shaped rubescent coral columns, edging its facade with azure and gold. The air was rife with the musks of the blossomed mountain-sides, and a medley of bird-music emanated from a hundred species, flitting and flapping their wet wings in the morning dew.

Belle-Ann tapped gently on Miss Worth's door. She stepped lightly into the room. Miss Worth was wide awake and paused, struck with the pure radiance of the girl's face.

"At last!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Miss Worth triumphantly. She kissed and hugged Belle-Ann in the exuberance of her joy and enthusiasm. Belle-Ann's eyes were clear and wide with a new light. The mote that had floated in their depths was gone for all time. And Miss Worth saw before her the most charming character and perfect specimen of young girlhood that fortune had ever led her to. "At last--you understand now, Belle-Ann?" she said, drawing her over to the edge of her bed.

"Yes, I do understand, Miss Worth," answered the girl, her face dimpled with smiles that betokened the calm and serenity of a new-found peace and faith.

"I understand, deahest Miss Worth," she repeated, "but I don't understand how I understand--it is all so deeply mysterious--so wonderful--to think of these wasted years! Oh!--if I could only see Lem!"

"And now," observed Miss Worth, "is it right for Lem to kill the man?"

pursued Miss Worth tentatively. Belle-Ann arose quickly from the bed, spurred by the thought that she now miraculously regarded as a two-edged wrong, and a direct offense against G.o.d.

"Oh!" she exclaimed regretfully, "how could I ever have thought it right--how could I? It's ignorance--it's downright ignorance--I see it all plainly now, my deah, sweet, true friend. I see it all just as you-all promised me long ago that I would see it--instead of lightening Lem's sorrows I was adding to them--I was making his burden harder to endure--I was dragging him down to misery, not knowing any better--it's terrible, Miss Worth--it's pure blind ignorance--I can't believe now that I did that. I'm guilty--guilty--guilty--if Lem kills the revenuer, I, too, am guilty, for I will now tell you, Miss Worth, I not only asked Lem to kill the man, as I told you-all--but I demanded it against Lem's love for me--offered a prize--a reward for the revenuer's dead body. Lem begged to kiss me on parting--I wouldn't even kiss him good-by--he kissed my hair, not my lips--I can see him now standing up thah holding out his arms to me--I was mad for the sight of that officer, dead. If Lem kills him it will be I who helped to chain an anchor of crime to Lem's poor wretched life--to drag him down. I did nothing to uplift him,--nothing to incite him to look for bright things in the future--my whole heart was aflame with revenge. Oh! what a miserable thing it is! I was mad; weak-spirited; blind with ignorance--and to think that I boasted of it to you! As I stand heah now, I can't believe I did that monstrous thing. And Lem up thah, his eyes and thoughts fixed downward--down on the trail of revenge, a path that leads to eternal unhappiness. I can't wait, Miss Worth--I won't rest until I see Lem. I hope nothing has happened to him. I'll lead him out of it all. I'll show him the way to life as G.o.d meant us to live. I'll lead him out, just as you, my deahest, kindest friend--just as you have led me away from the pit around which I had beaten a path with all of my foolish years of life--you led me away from a seething pit of misery, Miss Worth; a cauldron into which I would surely have tumbled, soul and all, in time.

Now--now--it's different; now--it's all changed--life looks like a beautiful picture to me now. But, oh!--how I pity the benighted sufferers up thah in the mountains--if there was only a way to show them--to show them the emoluments of life with the misery of feudal hate eliminated."

Too much overcome with sheer joy to speak, Miss Worth listened to Belle-Ann's earnest declarations and watched her smiling, confident, beautiful features with a sense of having, just here, achieved one of the greatest conquests of her missionary life.

Belle-Ann walked to the window, a new exquisite incarnation of girlhood.

With a thankful, gracious heart, ready and primed for the wonders of which she now had a divine intuition, she gazed across to the mountain summits, touched with the iridescent vapors, figured by the rising sun.

She watched the veil-like mist gradually rise over the river where it lingered like a film of bluish wood smoke. She listened to the clamorous carols of the birds, and there was a song in her heart and inwardly she was stirred with all the inspirations that accompany the placidity of a spirit untroubled and immaculate. The chapel chimes suddenly pealed out their morning anthems, and its music tinkled sweetly across the senses of the girl whose soul was throbbing in perfect attune.

From the sublimity of her momentary reverie, Miss Worth's gentle voice aroused Belle-Ann.

"Belle-Ann," she said, "would a bit of news before breakfast be distasteful?"

The girl cast a quick, expectant look toward Miss Worth, whose face was symbolical of still another revelation.

"I can bear anything," answered Belle-Ann. "I can now appreciate more than ever any glad news--life can hold no sorrow now that I cannot endure bravely--don't hesitate to tell me--I am unafraid."

"Well--it is not by any means fearful news, my dear; on the contrary, it's the most delightful surprise imaginable--the only thing I fear is that you will not forgive us for what will doubtless present itself to your mind as a rank conspiracy."

Belle-Ann laughed and squeezed the hand that crept into hers.

"When you are concerned, you are forgiven anything in advance--you-all couldn't commit anything, Miss Worth, that I could hold against you a second," she a.s.sured, laughingly.

The older woman fell pensive for a moment.

"Belle-Ann--I have known this for a long time--Colonel Tennytown asked me to acquaint you with this when I thought fit--I think the proper time is now at hand--Colonel Tennytown was your mother's father, Belle-Ann."

CHAPTER XXVII

A GRANDFATHER

"Oh!--Miss Worth!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the girl with a noticeable catch in her voice. "My grandfather--you-all can't mean that Colonel Tennytown is my really grandfather?" she pressed hastily, overwhelmed by this unlooked-for surprise.

"Yes, truly--Colonel Tennytown is your own grandfather, Belle-Ann, and I am happy and proud that you have such a man for your grandfather--he is going to come and claim you, my dear, and you are not to rebel when he tells you about your legacy--you have an inheritance--it is rightfully yours by every moral and legal tenure--it was your mother's--although her proud, relentless temperament spurned it while she lived. It now devolves upon you, Belle-Ann; you have been rich all along and did not know it--money matters need never trouble your dear little head. You recall that first visit to Lexington? Well, we took you out to the Colonel's home purposely for his maiden sister to see you. You know they wanted to be sure of you, Belle-Ann,--they wanted to feel certain, dear, that they would like you. And dear old Miss Malinda was more than charmed with your beauty and personality--she confided to me afterwards that she begged the Colonel to go directly and bring you there to live permanently. Belle-Ann, you look like you do not believe this good fortune," she ended abruptly.

Out of a daze the girl awake, and impulsively threw her arms around Miss Worth and kissed her until she laughingly protested. As Belle-Ann dressed for breakfast, she pondered upon the ways of Providence and wondered what unseen happening would come next to take its place in her life. She moved about in a state of bewilderment. She struggled to compose herself; this great good luck thrust upon her so suddenly seemed visionary. She, whose life heretofore had been lonesome and isolated, and overshadowed with unhappiness.

This abrupt intervention of a kind fate bore the atmosphere of a fairy romance. It was difficult to comprehend off-hand, that all this was meant for her. So that it was only gradually that she gathered the grace of its realization, and then her fancy waxed busy. A glamorous vista of possibilities were opened up to her. She saw before her salient, new-born contemplation, scores of day-dreams that had invaded her girlhood, resolve themselves now into a semblance of approaching tangible realities.

With superb, delicate touches she added to these mental pictures with the prolific imagery and exquisite mastery that only a vivacious, high-spirited girl can conjure. And paramount above all these fantastic castles were the benefits set aside to be bestowed upon Lem and Buddy and her father and even poor old Slab--they who had been fellow-sufferers in a war of strife and aching misery that had seemed interminable.