A Negro boy brought his breakfast of corn bread and bacon in a dirty tin plate.
John looked at it a minute with a curious smile: “No, thank you, my boy, I’ve just had my breakfast of ambrosia. I’ll take a chair, however, if the jailor can spare one!”
“Yassah, I’ll tell ‘im when I goes down,” he replied. “But I spec dey ain’t none lef. We got lots er boarders now.”
He placed the plate on the floor by the door, and grinned.
“Dey wuz er young lady come ter see ye las’ night, sah, but dey wouldn’t let ’er in!”
John smiled.
“What time was it?”
“Bout two er clock.”
“Yes, I saw her,” John slowly said with a strange look in his deep-set eyes. “She came up and stayed with me until sunrise.”
The Negro backed cautiously away muttering. “He got ‘em sho!” and darted down the steps. The fact that he was being kept in solitary confinement and refused communication of any kind with friend or counsel, roused every force of John Graham’s character.
When the Attorney General who had come down from Washington called at ten o’clock he greeted him with a laugh through the bars of his door:
“Excuse my lack of hospitality, General Champion,” he said; “I’d offer you a chair, but the hotel is crowded and we’re short of chairs just now.”
“Haven’t you a chair or a bed in your cell?” he enquired, peering in. “It’s an outrage. Bring two chairs here at once!” he thundered to the attendant.
“Mr. Graham,” said the General cordially, “I’ve hastened to you as a friend. I was a member of Congress with your uncle. We were warm personal friends. I’ve known several of your people, and always found them the salt of the earth.”
“Thanks,” John interrupted, a smile playing about the corners of his eyes.
“I wish to be of help to you if you will let me. It has long been known to the Department of Justice that you are the Chief of the Klan in North Carolina.”
“I congratulate the Department of Justice on the attainment of such interesting knowledge,” John broke in.
“Do you deny it?”
“I’m not discussing it.”
“You must know, Mr. Graham, that the organisation is doomed, and that you are in an extremely dangerous position. I trust you realise this?”
“Quite warm last night, General!”
“Come, come, young man, I’m your friend——”
“It’s a pleasure to meet a friend; do you think it will rain?”
“You are to be put on trial for your life——”
“My idea is that we are in for a long dry spell, General.”
“Tut, tut, my boy, come now, don’t try my temper with such nonsense. President Grant is not hostile to the South. He grieves over the necessity of the severe laws which he is now enforcing. His only desire is to pacify these disorders. The Klan must be stamped out. You have realised this—I know that you have led parties who have inflicted summary justice on some of the scoundrels who are operating in its disguises. Is not this a fact?”
John laughed.
“I know it,” affirmed the General.
“Then why ask me?”
“I know that you have tried to stamp out the disorders,” the General repeated. “Whatever the impulses which led a man of your high character into this lawless conspiracy, you have realised at last its dangerous character. You are in a position to render the South and the Nation an enormous service. Help me to restore law and order in the South and the Government will show its gratitude.”
“You mean exactly?”
“That you give me the information needed to wipe the Invisible Empire out of existence——”
“And in return?”
The General placed his hands on the bars and leaned close.
“The President has promised me to immediately appoint you an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, and in six months promote you to the high honour of a United States Circuit Judgeship.”
John’s fist suddenly shot through the iron bars, struck the General in the mouth, and hurled him in a heap against the wall of the corridor, as he cried with rage:
“D——n you! How dare you thus insult me?”
The General picked up his broken glasses from the floor, wiped a drop of blood from his lip, shook his fist at the man who glared at him through the barred door, and shouted:
“I’ll make you pay dearly for this!”
John laughed in his face.
“But you won’t make me that offer again, will you?”
CHAPTER III—A WOMAN’S WAY
IT WAS one o’clock before Stella recovered from the first collapse of terror for the fate of her lover. And then the imperious will summoned every energy to the struggle for his liberty and life.
She changed her riding habit and, taking Maggie, started at half past one in the morning to find Ackerman.
She had gone half way to Mrs. Wilson’s before she recalled the startling fact that her relations to Ackerman were unknown, and the still more painful fact that all knowledge of her relations to the detective must now be concealed with the utmost care. She felt instinctively that if John Graham discovered her plan to entrap him into a confession and her betrayal of his generous trust in her love, he could not forgive it. She shivered at the thought of his anger and disgust.
“We’ll go to the jail, Maggie,” she said, with sudden energy, “where is it?”
“Right down de nex street, I show ye,” Maggie answered. “I been dar lots er times. I wuz down dar yistiddy ter see my uncle Joe start ter de penitentiary.”
Stella shuddered, followed her down the side street, and knocked at the jail door.
No one answered. She knocked again and again. Finally the jailor thrust his head from the window above, saw it was a woman, shut the sash with a bang and went back to bed.
Stella looked at the grim walls with a sense of blind fury.
“I’ll show that insolent lazy rascal to-morrow morning how to treat me,” she cried, as she turned and started home. When they reached the corner she stopped, looked back at the jail looming black, silent and threatening among the shadows, and her heart went out in an agony of piteous yearning to the man within its walls.
Maggie pointed to the mass of trees behind the jail.
“See dem trees dar behin’ de house?”
Her mistress gave no answer, and the maid rattled on in awed whispers:
“Dars where dey hang folks! Dey’s er high fence roun’ de yard, but ye can see over it from here. I stan’ right on dis corner an’ see ’em hang a man dar las’ year.”
“Hush Maggie!” Stella sternly commanded.
“Yassum.”
Stella hurried home, and paced the floor of her room until morning.
At eight o’clock, in answer to her urgent summons, Ackerman came.
“You are sure no one saw you enter?” she asked nervously.
“Yes, but why such caution now? Our work is done, and well done. I congratulate you on the skill with which you did your part.”
“I had nothing to do with it. I’ve sent for you to have the whole thing stopped at once.”
“You had nothing to do with it!” Ackerman exclaimed.
“Absolutely nothing. I repudiate the whole affair.”
“I came here to do this work at your own request,” he protested.
“The arrest of Mr. Graham is an infamous outrage!”
“What!”
“An infamous outrage. I repeat it and demand his immediate release.”
“Why, my dear young woman, it was on the information which you gave that I swore out the warrant for his arrest.”
“It was you who swore out the warrant against him?” Stella fiercely cried. “Oh, I could kill you!”
“You gave me the information.”
“I did nothing of the kind,” she stormed. “It’s false—I deny it!”
“On your statement to me that he had confessed that he was Chief of the Klan, I made the oath on which his warrant was based,” Ackerman maintained with warmth.
“Then you swore a lie!” she hissed. “A lie—a lie!”
Stella fell on the lounge and buried her face in her hands.
Ackerman flushed and was silent. His keen eyes grew suddenly tender. He smiled, rose and stood by her side a moment, and when she looked up extended his hand.
“I’m sorry for you, Miss Stella. I think I understand!”
“Then you will know how to forgive my bitter and unjust words?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t you help me?” she asked piteously.
“The situation is extremely delicate for me as it is dangerous for John Graham. The Government is determined to press these cases for conspiracy and murder. Personally I have never believed Graham guilty of the murder of the Judge.”
“Of course he is innocent!”
“I think I know the man who killed your father.”
“And you will help me save John Graham?” she cried.
“I’ll have a big job before me to complete my work before this trial. There’ll be plenty of witnesses to swear anything the Government wants, but I’ll do my best.”
“Thank you.”
With a cordial grasp of the hand Ackerman took his leave and Stella hastened to confer with the Attorney General.
“I’ve come to demand the immediate release of Mr. Graham on the absurd charge that has been made against him,” she began impetuously.
The General looked at her in astonishment. “Hoity toity! My dear Miss, not so fast.”
“You began this at my request. I demand that it cease.”
“Yes, yes, I see, but you have forgotten that greater issues are at stake than even the lives of two men.”
“I’ll have nothing to do with the prosecution of an innocent man, General Champion.”
“Even so, you have set in motion forces you can not control. The fate of Mr. Graham is fixed. He is the Chief of the Klan. He’s as sure of conviction as the fact that he is to be put on trial. I’ll see that he is tried and that all the resources of the Government are used to secure his conviction.”
Stella’s beautiful face grew white and still.
“You will make a special effort against him?” she faltered.
“I will,” was the stern answer. “There was a way of escape. I offered it to him this morning in the most friendly and generous spirit. His answer was the gravest personal insult.”
“May I see him at once?”
“Certainly.”
The General hastily wrote an order and Stella hurried to the jail.
She determined to make a desperate appeal to induce him to compromise with the authorities and save his life.
At the sight of the heavy iron bars of his door before which John stood smiling, she broke completely down, seized his extended hand, covered it with kisses and sobbed bitterly.
“Come, come, my beautiful one, this is not like you! I’ve counted on your brave spirit to win this fight. Not another tear. Courage and laughter in our souls, defiance, scorn, contempt for our enemies! See, they have made me quite comfortable within the past hour. I tried to knock the Attorney General down, and lo, they rewarded me with a cot and a chair!”
“You knocked General Champion down?” Stella gasped in amazement.
“I did my best under difficulties. Think of it, my dear! He offered me an office for the betrayal of my people! I couldn’t kill him. I was behind the bars, but I shall always thank God that he stood close enough for my fist to reach his mouth.”
John broke into a joyous laugh. His spirit was contagious. Stella looked at him with wonder until a smile stole through the clouds that shadowed her own brow.
“How beautiful you are this morning, dearest!” he cried exultantly.
She brushed the tears from her eyes.
“I tried to see you last night at two o’clock,” she softly said.
“And succeeded, my love,” he interrupted smiling. “You came up and stood there and talked to me just as you are now. You told me to be of good cheer—that you loved me. That you hated a sneak and a coward and a traitor. That you had rather see me cold in death than stoop to a low dishonourable deed, even for all the honours of earth. And I lifted up my head in courage. I forgot jails and handcuffs, courts and trials. You took me by the hand and led me away into green fields through the deep woods beside beautiful waters. All night hand in hand we roamed through the mystic world of Love—the only world of realities—I was angry with the sun for waking me!”
“My darling, I’m not worthy of such love,” Stella cried, pressing his hand. “What can I do to help you?”
“Keep on loving me—that’s the main thing!—incidentally consult a lawyer—the best you can find—tell him that I’m going to fight, fight, fight to the last ditch my own cause and the cause of my people! Keep out of old Champion’s way. He carries a bribe in one hand, a death warrant in the other. Don’t let him know your plans. Don’t let him know that you love me.”
Stella lifted her head with sudden resolution.
“I’ll get the best lawyer in America. I’ll mortgage the house for the money.”
“My little heroine!” he exclaimed with pride.
“I’ll go at once.”
Through the iron bars she pressed her lips and hurried to the telegraph office with the light of new courage shining in her eyes.
CHAPTER IV—THE HON. STEPHEN HOYLE
STEVE HOYLE was confined to his room with a bullet hole through the flesh of his right arm the day following the meeting at Inwood.
He wrote Stella a letter informing her that John Graham had hired a gang of thugs to attempt his assassination on the night he was to meet her, that he had been desperately wounded in her service, and begged that she call at once.
Stella sent him a reply that cut deeper than the bullet from John’s revolver. It was very brief. Steve read it with muttered curses:
Mr. Stephen Hoyle,
I have long suspected that you were a liar. Last night you proved yourself a coward. Our acquaintance has ended.
Stella Butler.
Steve paced his room in a speechless rage for an hour, dressed to call on her and demand an interview, and suddenly changed his mind at the sight of a squad of troops hurrying past his door.
The arrest of John Graham had brought him to the verge of collapse. He trembled at the thought that his turn might come next, and feared to put his head out the door.
When ten minutes later the soldiers who had passed suddenly appeared at every exit of his house and loudly knocked for entrance, he dropped into a chair shivering with abject terror.
When arrested he turned his heavy white face toward the sergeant piteously.
“I beg of you, officer, allow me to stay here under guard. I am desperately wounded, by an accident.”
“You’ll have to go to jail,” the trooper snapped.
“But, my dear man, I can’t. I can’t walk,” he gasped with laboured breath. “Just let me stay here under arrest until I can arrange with the authorities to give bail.”
“Ye’ll have ter fix that at headquarters—come on,” he answered gruffly, seizing Steve and lifting him to his feet.
The heavy form collapsed and he sank in a heap on the floor.
The sergeant looked at him a moment with contempt, turned to his men and said:
“Keep him under guard till I report.”
The moment he had gone, Steve revived and crawled in bed, his teeth chattering with a nervous chill. The soldiers sat down and laughed in his face, and cracked jokes about the bravery of men who could ride well at night but sometimes fainted in the daylight.
The Attorney General had ordered Steve’s arrest on a shrewd guess which Ackerman had made on hearing of the strange fight between two groups of horsemen in the country at dusk the night before. The detective had seen the doctor leaving Hoyle’s house and learned at once that Steve was wounded.
In attempting to serve the warrant on John Graham he had found that he had ridden into the country alone in the direction taken by Steve Hoyle. Ackerman had long suspected Steve of complicity in the movements of the Klan, and knowing the deadly enmity between the two men had at once reached the conclusion that a feud within the ranks of its members could alone account for the situation.
“Arrest Hoyle,” he urged on Champion; “threaten him with immediate conviction for conspiracy and murder and see what happens.”
The Attorney General had taken his advice, and on receiving the report of Steve’s “illness” from the sergeant, went immediately to see him.
Steve was profuse in his expressions of cordiality.
“I’m sorry, General Champion,” he said, with loud friendliness, “that my father and mother are in the North at present. They spend a great deal of their time up there among you good Yankees. The fact is they are specially fond of you. My father, you know, was a secret Union man during the war and has always voted your ticket since, though for social reasons he don’t say much about it down here.”
Steve winked and laughed feebly.
“Is it so?” asked the General.
“Yes, of course,” Steve hurried on, “and I want to ask you as a personal favour to my father, if not to me, to accept my bail for £10,000. The whole thing, I assure you, is an absurd mistake. My father and I can convince you of this on his return.”
The General pursed his lips and watched Steve shrewdly for a moment.
“I’m sorry I can’t accommodate you, Mr. Hoyle. We cannot accept bail in cases of this kind. You must realise at once that you are in a very dangerous position. Beyond a doubt your life is in peril.”
Steve attempted to laugh but choked with terror, saying feebly:
“Oh, not so bad as that, General. I’m a lawyer myself you know. I can only be tried on a charge of murder before a state judge and jury. You have no right to put a man on trial for his life here.”
“Right or no right, young man, we are going to do it under the Act of Congress. We’ve got the power. The army is here. The Supreme Court may decide the Act unconstitutional later.”
“I assure you, General, the charge against me is a monstrous falsehood,” Steve protested vigorously.
“And yet, my boy, the men have found in the search of this house a full Ku Klux regalia for man and horse. Sergeant, bring that thing in!”
The trooper stepped in the door and held up before Steve’s astonished gaze the costume which he had taken under his saddle the night before on his trip to meet Stella.
Steve sat up in bed trembling and perspiring.
“Why, yes, of course,” he stammered. “That has been here for some time. I’ve made no attempt to conceal it. It was given me by a client of mine who was a member. I’m keeping it as a curiosity.”
“A dangerous curiosity to keep about your house in these times, sir,” said the General sternly. “Let’s come to the point. Do you wish to keep out of jail or do you wish to test the power of the United States Government to put you on trial for your life?”
“I want to keep out of jail,” was the quick answer.
“That’s sensible. Then face the facts. My detective has watched you for three months. I can convict you of murder.”
Steve fumbled his hands nervously while the General paused and gazed steadily at his wavering eyes.
“Now, I’ve a generous proposition to make you.”
“Yes?—yes?” Steve gasped.
“One that will give you an opportunity to prove yourself a patriot and a hero—a patriot because you will render your country a great service—a hero because you must brave the scorn of every white man and woman whose opinion is worth anything to you. Will you consider it?”
“Yes,” Steve answered.
“Give me the information needed to destroy the Invisible Empire and I will not only release you from custody; I will make you my assistant and ultimately secure your promotion to a judgeship. Your answer?”
“I’ll do it, General, I’ll do it!” Steve cried, while the maudlin tears of a coward’s relief from mortal fear coursed down his fat cheeks. “I’ll stand by you and help save our country by restoring law and order.”
The General thanked and congratulated him, again called him a patriot and hero and sent for his stenographer. For four hours he was closeted with Steve.
At dusk the soldiers moved with sure tread in every county in Piedmont Carolina, and before the sun rose the blow had fallen swift, relentless, terrible!
The Klan leaders in every county were behind the bars.
More than five hundred arrests were made in the county of Independence. Around the jail, and half a dozen improvised prisons, throngs of sadfaced wives, mothers, sisters and sweethearts stood silently weeping.
The next morning Champion wired the President asking that the Honourable Stephen Hoyle be appointed acting Assistant United States District Attorney, and his request was granted.
CHAPTER V—ACKERMAN CORNERED
THE arrest of John Graham precipitated a crisis between Ackerman and Susie Wilson which was as unexpected as it was embarrassing to the handsome young detective.
From the moment she had seen his letter on Stella’s bed she had watched the young Northerner with the keenest suspicions.
The following day he pressed his love with straightforward earnestness.
She answered with an evasive smile.
“I appreciate the honour you pay me, Mr. Ackerman, but I’m not in love with you. I hope we shall always be friends. If your love endures it may win mine in the end—if you persist.”
“I have your permission to persist?”
“Certainly,” she answered frankly. “I love to be loved.”
“All right,” he said with a boyish laugh. “I’m going to build my house in the fall.”
On the day following John Graham’s arrest she saw Ackerman emerge from the hotel in earnest consultation with the Attorney General. To her the prosecuting officer of the United States at that moment meant all that was vile and hateful in the tyranny under which the South had groaned since the dawn of her memory.
The moment she saw Ackerman with this man, his very name became to her accursed. Her keen intuition at once linked the letter to Stella with the murder of the Judge and the prosecution of the Klan. She was sure that Ackerman had been playing the hypocrite and was at heart an enemy of the South. She determined not only to cut his acquaintance but put him out of her mother’s house.
When the young detective received a written notice from Susie to vacate his room immediately, he took it to be a practical joke and asked to see her. She sent word by the servant that unless he moved during the day his trunk would be thrown on the sidewalk.
Ackerman left in answer to a summons from the Attorney General’s office, still puzzling his brain over the meaning of the joke. He was sure that she could not possibly know of his oath against John Graham which was a secret of the Department of Justice. He was equally sure that she could not suspect his real business in Independence. He meant to win her love first. He didn’t care what she thought of his profession afterwards.
When he returned to Mrs. Wilson’s for supper he was struck dumb by the sight of his trunk lying on the sidewalk outside the gate.
Without a word he picked it up, carried it back upstairs and threw it on the floor with a bang in front of the room that had been his.
He sat down on it and refused to stir until Susie answered in person his demand for an interview.
To avoid a scene she finally consented to meet him in the parlour.
Susie’s gray eyes were cold and her tall figure rigid.
“In violation of every law that should govern the conduct of a gentleman you have forced yourself into my presence Mr. Ackerman. I trust our interview may be very brief.”
“In violation of every law of Southern hospitality, to say nothing of the rules which should govern the temper of a lady, you have thrown me out of your house without rhyme or reason. And before I go I respectfully but firmly ask, why?”
“You have pretended to be a friend of our people I find that you are an enemy—a sneak and a hypocrite.”
Ackerman’s cheeks blushed redder than usual; he bit his lips and finally burst into laughter.
“Is that all?”
Susie rose with dignity.
“It’s quite enough for my mother and myself.”
“But it’s not enough for me, Miss Susie. My defence against your unjust suspicions is perfect. I will make it if necessary. I trust it will not be necessary.”
“You might include in your defence an explanation of why you were corresponding with Stella Butler while you were writing love to me?”
“Who said that I wrote to Miss Butler?”
“I say it. I saw your letter in her room the day you declared your love for me.”
Ackerman was cornered. He must confess and betray Stella’s secret or keep silent and wreck his own hopes. His decision was instantly made.
“Miss Susie, you’ve got me. I give up. I’m not a sneak—but I am a hypocrite by profession.”
“You confess it?” Susie cried with scorn. “Yes,” he whispered. “I am a trusted detective of the United States Secret Service. I am not the enemy of your people. On the other hand, I have learned to love and sympathise with them. Perhaps my love for you has given me that point of view. Anyway, I’ve taken it. I am simply here as an officer on duty under command of his superior.”
Susie’s face softened. She saw at once her mistake.
“And your duty led you into correspondence with Miss Butler?5’
“I regret to be compelled to answer, but it did.”
“She has aided in your work?”
“Yes. I reported to her by order of the Chief on arrival, and have been in constant communication with her at every step since.”
“Up to the hour of John Graham’s arrest?” Susie asked breathlessly.
“Yes.”
“Oh, the little fiend! I could strangle her!” the girl cried.
“I’m sorry to have to betray this confidence. But you have forced me.”
“And you are pressing the charge of murder against John Graham?”
“On the other hand, I am not. If my plans succeed, I’ll explode a bombshell in the court room the day he faces the jury.”
Susie extended her hand.
“I beg your pardon for my rudeness. Alfred will put your trunk back immediately, if you will stay.”
Ackerman mounted to his room and unpacked his trunk, humming a love song while Susie put on her hat and left with swift firm step to find Stella Butler.
CHAPTER VI—THROUGH DEEP WATERS
STELLA had hurried to the jail with a bouquet of flowers earlier than usual, accompanied by Maggie who carried a dainty breakfast. She wished to be the first to tell John Graham of the blow which had fallen on his people. She had forgotten that the jail in which he lay had been jammed with prisoners during the night. Four of his friends were crowded into the cell in which he was confined.
Her heart sank at the sight of the pitiful crowds of weeping women who stood at the jail door, some of them with sick babies in their arms.
A little tow-headed boy sat on the steps, with his lips quivering and the big tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. She recognised him as the one she saw in front of her house the night of the Klan’s first parade.
She bent over him and took his hand:
“What’s the matter?”
The boy’s breast heaved and he choked, unable to answer, bent his sunburnt head on Stella’s hand and burst into strangling tears.
She stroked his hair, and at length he sobbed:
“They’ve got my big brother in here—locked—up—in—a—cage! They’re going to kill him, and he ain’t got nobody but me to help him. I ain’t nothing but a little boy. I can’t get no money, and I can’t do nothing. Oh, me! oh, me!”
He bowed again and sobbed as though his heart would break.
Stella slipped her arm around his neck and placed a rose in his hand.
“Hush dear, I’ll be your friend and his. I’ve got money. I’ll help you—give the rose to your brother and come to see me.”
“Will you, Miss?” he cried, leaping up with joy. “Make’em let me go in with you and I’ll tell him!”
Stella took him by the hand and led him into the jail.
When the jailor frowned at the boy, she said with a smile:
“He’s a little friend of mine. He’ll go in with me.”
The boy nestled close to her side and gripped her hand tightly. When they reached the first corridor, he sprang to a grated door and seized his brother’s hand. As she passed on Stella heard him say joyously:
“It’ll be all right, Jim, don’t worry. She’s a goin’ to help us. She told me so. She’s rich—she’ll get us a lawyer.”
Stella climbed the stairs to John’s door with a great voiceless fear in her soul. The thought of his discovery of her betrayal stopped the very beat of her heart.
To her surprise she found him strangely calm.
“It’s sweet of you to come so early,” he said with a smile.
“Love makes one’s feet swift, doesn’t it?” she answered softly.
“And beautiful!” he cried. “I’m going to make you happier by giving you more work. Don’t bring me anything more to eat or any more flowers until you’ve made the other fellows comfortable. I’m all right, but a lot of the poor boys who have just come have broken down. Oh, God, if I could have gotten my hands on the throat of the traitor last night!”
Never had she seen a more terrible look on a human face. Stella gazed at his convulsed features fascinated with fear.
“You’ll help the boys, won’t you, dear, for my sake?” he asked suddenly. “Susie Wilson and her mother will join you.”
Stella answered with a start:
“Why—of course, John. I’ll go at once.”
“And dear!” he called as she turned quickly.
“The lawyer whom you engage for me must take all their cases. I’ll stand or fall with my people.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Stella hurried home with her soul in a tumult of conflicting purposes. She felt it yet too dangerous to confess the dual rôle she had played; yet with each hour’s startling events the agony of fear lest he discover her betrayal became more and more intense.
One thing she could do at once. She would make the cause of his men her own, she would make her ministry of love so tender and unselfish, her sacrifices so generous he must hear her plea when the awful moment of her confession should come.
She had just given Aunt Julie Ann orders to prepare three meals each day for every man in jail with John, and was about to start for the garden to cut more flowers, when Maggie ushered Susie Wilson into the hall.
“I’m so glad you’ve come,” Stella cried. “I was just going to ask you and your mother to help us make those men comfortable who have been put in jail. Mr. Graham was sure you would join me.”
Susie stared at Stella for a moment and slowly said:
“Is it possible!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” Stella asked. “Won’t you sit down?”
“I prefer to stand, thank you, and to come straight to the point,” Susie answered with quiet emphasis. “May I ask you some questions?”
Stella flushed and her first impulse was to show her questioner to the door, but she felt the dangerous menace in Susie’s tone and knew that she had suspected at least part of the truth. It was necessary to fence.
“Why, as many as you like,” she replied with a light laugh.
“You have told John Graham that you love him?”
“Your question is an impertinence. It’s none of your business.”
“I have made it my business.”
“Then the sooner you recover your self-respect the better,” Stella sneered.
“What do you mean?” Susie’s gray eyes danced with anger.
“That you are desperately and hopelessly in love with John Graham yourself, and that you haven’t pride and character enough to hold up your head before his indifference, and his patronising contempt. I have won him, and you come with cheap insults for the woman he loves.”
Susie’s eyes grew dim.
“Your accusation is infamously false,” she cried with choking emotion.
“You deny that you love him?” Stella flashed.
“I glory in it—if you will know!” Susie cried in dreamy tenderness. “I’ve always loved him with a girl’s blind worship of the hero of her dreams. And I shall cherish every gentle word that he has ever spoken to me. The impulse which brought me here wasn’t the vulgar desire to insult the woman he loves. I came to save his life.”
Stella sprang to her feet, her face scarlet, her breath coming in quick gasps of anger.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you if you answer my questions. Do you dare tell me that you love him?”
Stella drew herself up proudly.
“You have no right to ask that question. But I answer it. I do love him and I have told him.”
Susie confronted her with flashing eyes.
“Then you have deceived him!”
“How dare you thus insult me in my house,” Stella cried with flaming cheeks.
“I’ll leave your house and never enter it again. You can also rest assured that John Graham’s foot will never again cross this threshold when I have told him the truth.”
“When—you—have—told—him—the—truth!” Stella gasped. “What truth?”
“That you have betrayed him and his people to his enemies.”
“It’s false! It’s false!” Stella panted. “You lie. You lie, because you hate me! You hate me because you love him. Tell him if you dare. He will laugh in your face! Try it—try it—I dare you!” Her voice rose and fell, quivering and breaking in hoarse whispers of passion.
Susie stood quietly and coldly staring at her with lips upturned in scorn.
“If he doubts my word, Mr. Ackerman’s will be sufficient.”
“Ackerman!” Stella moaned, staggering to the table.
“Mr. Ackerman of the Secret Service who came here in answer to your call.”
“He—has—told—you?”
“Yes, and I know the whole black hideous truth. I know that you hate John Graham, that you have used your devil’s beauty to entrap and betray him.”
“I swear that I love him!” Stella groaned as she sank to a chair.
“As you’ve sworn to him no doubt while you lured him to his ruin. I hate you—I hate you—and I could strangle you!”
The tall lithe form trembling with fury towered above Stella’s shivering little figure.
“Susie, you are mistaken,” she faltered. “Come into the library a moment and I’ll convince you that you are wrong.”
She seized Susie’s hand and led her into the library, sinking again into a chair.
“See, here is a mortgage for ten thousand dollars on this house which I’ve prepared to raise the money for two great lawyers from the North who are coming to defend him.”
“From the North?”
“Yes.”
“You mean to convict him,” Susie cried. “Another shrewd trick you are playing. Your lawyers will gain his confidence, learn his secrets, betray and send him to his death. But, I’ll warn him!”
“Susie, you can’t believe this of me! The pledging of this house is the first great act of selfsacrifice of my life. The joy of it has been a sweet revelation to me. You must hear me when I tell you that I love him with passionate devotion. I’d give my life for him if I could!”
“And yet you brought Ackerman here and hounded him for three months until at last he lies in a filthy jail with the shadow of death over him—and you call this love?”
The tall form again towered in rage above the shrinking figure.
“Wait! I must tell you all, Susie. You know but half the truth. Listen dear, I did try to avenge my father’s death. I believed John Graham guilty. I did lure him on to love me only to find that I loved him! I tried to hate him and couldn’t. I’ve betrayed only his name to Ackerman. I could tear my tongue out for it. If he learns of it, he will turn from me and hate me! Susie darling, I’ve been proud and vain and wilful. Now I’m a poor little girl alone, friendless and lost. You’re stronger than I am. Have pity on me. Be a mother to me—I’m lonely and heart-sick. You know what it is to love. If he turns from me now before I can atone for the wrong I have done him, I can’t live. You—believe—me—now—dear?”
Susie’s eyes filled with tears.
“Yes, I believe you now.”
Stella’s head sank on the table and her form shook with sobs.
Susie gently stroked the curling black hair, and said:
“I’ll help you. We’ll work together to save his life.”
In a moment they were sobbing in each other’s arms.