hing for you," he said after a silence. "You should not
wander here alone--it is dangerous."

"Why, dangerous?" she asked.

"Wandering Negroes, and even wild beasts, in the forest depths--and
malaria--see, you tremble now."

"But not from malaria," she slowly returned.

He caught an unfamiliar note in his voice, and a wild desire to justify
himself before this woman clamored in his heart. With it, too, came a
cooler calculating intuition that frankness alone would win her now. At
all hazards he must win, and he cast the die.

"Miss Taylor," he said, "I want to talk to you--I have wanted to for--a
year." He glanced at her: she was white and silent, but she did not
tremble. He went on:

"I have hesitated because I do not know that I have a right to speak or
explain to--to--a good woman."

He felt her arm tighten on his and he continued:

"You have been to Elspeth's cabin; it is an evil place, and has meant
evil for this community, and for me. Elspeth was my mother's favorite
servant and my own mammy. My mother died when I was ten and left me to
her tender mercies. She let me have my way and encouraged the bad in me.
It's a wonder I escaped total ruin. Her cabin became a rendezvous for
drinking and carousing. I told my father, but he, in lazy indifference,
declared the place no worse than all Negro cabins, and did nothing. I
ceased my visits. Still she tried every lure and set false stories going
among the Negroes, even when I sought to rescue Zora. I tell you this
because I know you have heard evil rumors. I have not been a good
man--Mary; but I love you, and you can make me good."

Perhaps no other appeal would have stirred Mary Taylor. She was in many
respects an inexperienced girl. But she thought she knew the world; she
knew that Harry Cresswell was not all he should be, and she knew too
that many other men were not. Moreover, she argued he had not had a fair
chance. All the school-ma'am in her leaped to his teaching. What he
needed was a superior person like herself. She loved him, and she
deliberately put her arms about his neck and lifted her face to be
kissed.

Back by the place of the Silver Fleece they wandered, across the Big
Road, up to the mansion. On the steps stood John Taylor and Helen
Cresswell hand in hand and they all smiled at each other. The Colonel
came out, smiling too, with the paper in his hands.

"Easterly's right," he beamed, "the stock of the Cotton Combine--" he
paused at the sil