STEVE’S response to Stella’s call was prompt.

He entered the library with heavy, firm step, a flush of triumph on his sleek handsome animal face.

“He has betrayed the Klan to you?” he asked with eagerness.

“Sit down,” she responded coolly, an accent of resentment rising in her voice. “Before I answer that important question, I’ve something I wish to ask you.”

“Anything you like,” he answered suavely. “And I want the truth,” she continued, with increasing emphasis.

“I’ll give it to you if it’s in my power.”

“You haven’t done it always,” was the firm retort.

“You wish to know about the men on whom I rely to execute justice on John Graham?”

“Yes, who are they?”

“Members of the Klan from the hills—innocent men on whom he wreaked his vengeance in the most brutal and inhuman manner without a trial.”

“You are sure they are members of the Klan?”

“Certainly.”

“They will come to arrest and try him, dressed in the same costumes the men wore the night my father was killed?”

“Yes.”

“Have you hired these men to assassinate him?” she suddenly asked, piercing Steve with her great eyes.

“My God, no!” he protested.

“What will they do?”

“Why, try him by his own laws, of course,” Steve answered vaguely.

“What laws?”

“The law of the Order which forbids an officer to abuse his power by using it for personal ends as he did in the murder of the Judge.”

“Why have they not tried him before?”

“The feeling against him was not strong enough.”

“And now?”

“If he has betrayed the Klan, by his own laws he can be torn limb from limb, so long as a shred of its power remains.”

“He could not be put to death for telling the secrets of the Klan to the woman he loves?”

“Yes.”

“And he knows this?”

“Of course.”

“A big, glorious, beautiful thing, a love like that, isn’t it?” she cried with strange elation, tears flashing from her eyes.

“From the woman’s point of view, perhaps it is—from that of the man whose life he puts in peril, hardly.”

“But from the woman’s point of view! yes—and judged by her standard, cowards who hedge and lie and fear to do such things don’t measure very high beside him—do they? I’m afraid, Steve, your love is ............