he girl's lips.

"Nothing has happened yet, my daughter. Your brother has held a regiment
of his men in readiness every moment of the day."

"Mr. Stoneman is at the hotel and asks to see you immediately," she
whispered.

"God grant he may prevent bloodshed," said the father. "Go inside and stay
with your mother."

When Doctor Cameron entered the parlour Stoneman hobbled painfully to meet
him, his face ashen, and his breath rattling in his throat as if his soul
were being strangled.

"You are my enemy, Doctor," he said, taking his hand, "but you are a pious
man. I have been called an infidel--I am only a wilful sinner--I have
slain my own son, unless God Almighty, who can raise the dead, shall save
him! You are the man at whom I aimed the blow that has fallen on my head.
I wish to confess to you and set myself right before God. He may hear my
cry, and have mercy on me."

He gasped for breath, sank into his seat, looked around, and said:

"Will you close the door?"

The doctor complied with his request and returned.

"We all wear masks, Doctor," began the trembling voice. "Beneath lie the
secrets of love and hate from which actions move. My will alone forged the
chains of negro rule. Three forces moved me--party success, a vicious
woman, and the quenchless desire for personal vengeance. When I first fell
a victim to the wiles of the yellow vampire who kept my house, I dreamed
of lifting her to my level. And when I felt myself sinking into the black
abyss of animalism, I, whose soul had learned the pathway of the stars and
held high converse with the great spirits of the ages----"

He paused, looked up in terror, and whispered:

"What's that noise? Isn't it the distant beat of horses' hoofs?"

"No," said the doctor, listening; "it's the roar of the falls we hear,
from a sudden change of the wind."

"I'm done now," Stoneman went on, slowly fumbling his hands. "My life has
been a failure. The dice of God are always loaded."

His great head drooped lower, and he continued:

"Mightiest of all was my motive of revenge. Fierce business and political
feuds wrecked my iron mills. I shouldered their vast debts, and paid the
last mortgage of a hundred thousand dollars the week before Lee invaded my
State. I stood on the hill in the darkness, cried, raved, cursed, while I
watched the troops lay those mills in ashes. Then and there I swore that
I'd live until I ground the South beneath my heel! When I got back to my