r--your--dear--lips--say--that--you--love--me--God
knows I love you--you-dear-little-angel-sent-from heaven! I'm not worthy
to touch your hand and yet I'm crushing it--I can't help it--I can't-I
can't."

She slipped into his arms and he crushed her to his heart.

"I love you," she whispered. "I can trust you. I'll never ask your
secret until you wish to tell me. Just love me, forever. That's all I
ask."

"I can do that, and I will!" he answered solemnly.

They were married the next night in the parsonage of the Methodist
Church of which she was a member. And the foundation was laid for a
tragedy involving more lives than one.

CHAPTER XXVIII

From an old log farmhouse on the hills of Maryland,--overlooking the
town of Harper's Ferry, the panther was crouching to spring.

For four months in various disguises Brown had reconnoitered the
mountains around the gorge of the two rivers. He had climbed the
peak and looked into the county of Fauquier with its swarming slave
population. Each week he piloted his wagon to the town of Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, thirty-five miles back in the hills.

The Humanitarians through their agents were shipping there, day by day,
the powder, lead, guns, knives, torches and iron pikes the Chosen One
had asked.

These pious men met him for a final conference in the home of Gerrit
Smith, the preacher philanthropist of Peterboro.

The canny old huntsman revealed to them just enough to excite the
unconscious archaic impulse beneath the skin of culture. He told them
that he was going to make a daring raid into the heart of the Old South
and rescue as many of the "oppressed" as possible. They knew that the
raid into Missouri had resulted in murder and that he rode back into
Kansas with the red stains on his hands.

Brown gained their support by this carefully concealed appeal to their
subconscious natures. As the crowd of eager faces bent close to catch,
the details of his scheme, the burning eyes of the leader were suddenly
half closed. Silence followed and they watched the two pin points of
light in vain.

Each pious man present caught the smell of human blood. Yet each pious
man carefully concealed this from himself and his neighbor until it
would be approved by all. Had the bald facts behind the enterprise been
told in plain English, religion and culture would have called a
halt. The elemental impulse of the Beast must therefore be carefully
concealed.

Every man present