night, and determined to surprise Elsie by meeting her in his uniform of a
Grand Dragon.

Secure in her loyalty, he would deliberately thus put his life in her
hands. Using the water of a brook in the woods for a mirror, he adjusted
his yellow sash and pushed the two revolvers back under the cape out of
sight, saying to himself with a laugh:

"Betray me? Well, if she does, life would not be worth the living!"

When Elsie had recovered from the first shock of surprise at the white
horse and rider waiting for her under the shadows of the old beech, her
surprise gave way to grief at the certainty of his guilt, and the
greatness of his love in thus placing his life without a question in her
hands.

He tied the horses in the woods, and they sat down on the rustic.

He removed his helmet cap, threw back the white cape showing the scarlet
lining, and the two golden circles with their flaming crosses on his
breast, with boyish pride. The costume was becoming to his slender
graceful figure, and he knew it.

"You see, sweetheart, I hold high rank in the Empire," he whispered.

From beneath his cape he drew a long bundle which he unrolled. It was a
triangular flag of brilliant yellow edged in scarlet. In the centre of the
yellow ground was the figure of a huge black dragon with fiery red eyes
and tongue. Around it was a Latin motto worked in scarlet: "_quod semper,
quod ubique, quod ab omnibus_"--what always, what everywhere, what by all
has been held to be true. "The battle-flag of the Klan," he said; "the
standard of the Grand Dragon."

Elsie seized his hand and kissed it, unable to speak.

"Why so serious to-night?"

"Do you love me very much?" she answered.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life at the feet of
his beloved," he responded tenderly.

"Yes, yes; I know--and that is why you are breaking my heart. When first I
met you--it seems now ages and ages ago--I was a vain, self-willed, pert
little thing----"

"It's not so. I took you for an angel--you were one. You are one
to-night."

"Now," she went on slowly, "in what I have lived through you I have grown
into an impassioned, serious, self-disciplined, bewildered woman. Your
perfect trust to-night is the sweetest revelation that can come to a
woman's soul and yet it brings to me unspeakable pain----"

"For what?"

"You are guilty of murder."

Ben's figure stiffened.

"The judge who pronounces sentence of death on a criminal outla