Norton made a desperate effort to pull himself together for his appeal to Helen. On its outcome hung the possibility of saving himself from the terror that haunted him. If he could tell the girl the truth and make her see that a marriage with Tom was utterly out of the question because her blood was stained with that of a negro, it might be possible to save himself the humiliation of the full confession of their relationship and of his bitter shame.

He had made a fearful mistake in not telling her this at their first interview, and a still more frightful mistake in rearing her in ignorance of the truth. No life built on a lie could endure. He was still trying desperately to hold his own on its shifting sands, but in his soul of souls he had begun to despair of the end. He was clutching at straws. In moments of sanity he realized it, but there was nothing else to do. The act was instinctive.

The girl\'s sensitive mind was the key to a possible solution. He had felt instinctively on the day he told her the first fact about the disgrace of her birth, vague and shadowy as he had left it, that she could never adjust herself to the certainty that negro blood flowed in her veins. He had observed that her aversion to negroes was peculiarly acute. If her love for the boy[Pg 373] were genuine, if it belonged to the big things of the soul, and were not the mere animal impulse she had inherited from her mother, he would have a ground of most powerful appeal. Love seeks not its own. If she really loved she would sink her own life to save his.

It was a big divine thing to demand of her and his heart sank at the thought of her possible inheritance from Cleo. Yet he knew by an instinct deeper and truer than reason, that the ruling power in this sensitive, lonely creature was in the spirit, not the flesh. He recalled in vivid flashes the moments he had felt this so keenly in their first pitiful meeting. If he could win her consent to an immediate flight and the sacrifice of her own desires to save the boy! It was only a hope—it was a desperate one—but he clung to it with painful eagerness.

Why didn\'t she come? The minutes seemed hours and there were minutes in which he lived a life.

He rose nervously and walked toward the mantel, lifted his eyes and they rested on the portrait of his wife.

"\'My brooding spirit will watch and guard!\'"

He repeated the promise of her last scrawled message. He leaned heavily against the mantel, his eyes burning with an unusual brightness.

"Oh, Jean, darling," he groaned, "if you see and hear and know, let me feel your presence! Your dear eyes are softer and kinder than the world\'s to-night. Help me, I\'m alone, heartsick and broken!"

He choked down a sob, walked back to the chair and sank in silence. His eyes were staring into space, his imagination on fire, passing in stern review the events[Pg 374] of his life. How futile, childish and absurd it all seemed! What a vain and foolish thing its hope and struggles, its dreams and ambitions! What a failure for all its surface brilliance! He was standing again at the window behind the dais of the President of the Senate, watching the little drooping figure of the Governor staggering away into oblivion, and his heart went out to him in a great tenderness and pity. He longed to roll back the years that he might follow the impulse he had felt to hurry down the steps of the Capitol, draw the broken man into a sheltered spot, slip his arms about him and say:

"Who am I to judge? You\'re my brother—I\'m sorry! Come, we\'ll try it again and help one another!"

The dream ended in a sudden start. He had heard the rustle of a dress at the door and knew without lifting his head that she was in the room.

Only the slightest sound had come from her dry throat, a little muffled attempt to clear it of the tightening bands. It was scarcely audible, yet his keen ear had caught it instantly, not only caught the excitement under which she was struggling, but in it the painful consciousness of his hostility and her pathetic desire to be friends.

He rose trembling and turned his dark eyes on her white uplifted face.

A feeling of terror suddenly weakened her knees. He was evidently not angry as she had feared. There was something bigger and more terrible than anger behind the mask he was struggling to draw over his mobile features.

"What has happened, major?" she asked in a subdued voice.
"Only the slightest sound came from her dry throat." "Only the slightest sound came from her dry throat."

[Pg 375]

"That is what I must know of you, child," he replied, watching her intently.

She pressed closer with sudden desperate courage, her voice full of wistful friendliness:

"Oh, major, what have I done to offend you? I\'ve tried so hard to win your love and respect. All my life I\'ve been alone in a world of strangers, friendless and homesick——"

He lifted his hand with a firm gesture:

"Come, child, to the point! I must know the truth now. Tom has made love to you?"

She blushed:

"I—I—wish to see Tom before I answer——"

Norton dropped his uplifted arm with a groan:

"Thank you," he murmured in tones scarcely audible. "I have your answer!"—he paused and looked at her curiously—"And you love him?"

The girl hesitated for just an instant, her blue eyes flashed and she drew her strong, young figure erect:

"Yes! And I\'m proud of it. His love has lifted me into the sunlight and made the world glorious—made me love everything in it—every tree and every flower and every living thing that moves and feels——-"

She stopped abruptly and lifted her flushed face to his:

"I\'ve learned to love you, in spite of your harshness to me—I love you because you are his father!"

He turned from her and then wheeled suddenly, his face drawn with pain:

"Now, I must be frank, I must be brutal. I must know the truth without reservation—how far has this thing gone?"

"I—I—don\'t understand you!"[Pg 376]

"Marriage is impossible! I told you that and you must have realized it."

Her head drooped:

"You said so——"

"Impossible—utterly impossible! And you know it"—he drew a deep breath. "What—what are your real relations?"

"My—real—relations?" she gasped.

"Answer me now, before God! I\'ll hold your secret sacred—your life and his may depend on it"—his voice dropped to a tense whisper. "Your love is pure and unsullied?"

The girl\'s eyes flashed with rage:

"As pure and unsullied as his dead mother\'s for you!"

"Thank God!" he breathed. "I believe you—but I had to know, child! I had to know—there are big, terrible reasons why I had to know."

A tear slowly stole down Helen\'s flushed cheeks as she quietly asked:

"Why—why should you insult and shame me by asking that question?"

"My knowledge of your birth."

The girl smiled sadly:

"Yet you might have guessed that I had learned to cherish honor and purity before I knew I might not claim them as my birthright!"

"Forgive me, child," he said contritely, "if in my eagerness, my fear, my anguish, I hurt you. But I had to ask that question! I had to know. Your answer gives me courage"—he paused and his voice quivered with deep intensity—"you really love Tom?"

"With a love beyond words!"[Pg 377]

"The big, wonderful love that comes to the human soul but once?"

"Yes!"

His eyes were piercing to the depths now:

"With the deep, unselfish yearning that asks nothing for itself and seeks only the highest good of its beloved?"

"Yes—yes," she answered mechanically and, pausing, looked again into his burning eyes; "but you frighten me—" she grasped a chair for support, recovered herself and went on rapidly—"you mustn\'t ask me to give him up—I won\'t give him up! Poor and friendless, with a shadow over my life and everything against me, I have won him and he\'s mine! I have the right to his love—I didn\'t ask to be born. I must live my own life. I have as much right to happiness as you. Why must I bear the sins of my father and mother? Have I broken the law? Haven\'t I a heart that can ache and break and cry for joy?"

He allowed the first paroxysm of her emotion to spend itself before he replied, and then in quiet tones said:

"You must give him up!"

"I won\'t! I won\'t, I tell you!" she said through her set teeth as she suddenly swung her strong, young form before him. "I won\'t give him up! His love has made life worth living and I\'m going to live it! I don\'t care what you say—he\'s mine—and you shall not take him from me!"

Norton was stunned by the fiery intensity with which her answer had been given. There was no mistaking the strength of her character. Every vibrant note of her voice had rung with sincerity, purity, the justice[Pg 378] of her cause, and the consciousness of power. He was dealing with no trembling schoolgirl\'s mind, filled with sentimental dreams. A woman, in the tragic strength of a great nature, stood before him. He felt this greatness instinctively and met it with reverence. It could only be met thus, and as he realized its strength, his heart took fresh courage. His own voice became tender, eager, persuasive:

"But suppose, my dear, I show you that you will destroy the happiness and wreck the life of the man you love?"

"Impossible! He knows that I\'m nameless and his love is all the deeper, truer and more manly because he realizes that I am defenseless."

"But suppose I convince you?"

"You can\'t!"

"Suppose," he said in a queer tone, "I tell you that the barrier between you is so real, so loathsome——"

"Loathsome?" she repeated with a start.

"So loathsome," he went on evenly, "that when he knows the truth, whether he wishes it or not, he will instinctively turn from you with a shudder."

"I won\'t believe it!"

"Suppose I prove to you that marriage would wreck both your life and his"—he gazed at her with trembling intensity—"would you give him up to save him?"

She held his eye steadily:

"Yes—I\'d die to save him!"

A pitiful stillness followed. The man scarcely moved. His lips quivered and his eyes grew dim. He looked at her pathetically and motioned her to a seat.

"And if I convince you," he went on tenderly, "you will submit yourself to my advice and leave America?"[Pg 379]

The blue eyes never flinched as she firmly replied:

"Yes. But I warn you that no such barrier can exist."

"Then I must prove to you that it does." He drew a deep breath and watched her. "You realize the fact that a man who marries a nameless girl bars himself from all careers of honor?"

"The honor of fools, yes—of the noble and wise, no!"

"You refuse to see that the shame which shadows a mother\'s life will smirch her children, and like a deadly gangrene at last eat the heart out of her husband\'s love?"

"My faith in him is too big——"

"You can conceive of no such barrier?"

"No!"

"In the first rush of love," he replied kindly, "you feel this. Emotion obscures reason. But there are such barriers between men and women."

"Name one!"

His brow clouded, his lips moved to speak and stopped. It was more difficult to frame in speech than he had thought. His jaw closed with firm decision at last and he began calmly:

"I take an extreme case. Suppose, for example, your father, a proud Southern white man, of culture, refinement and high breeding, forgot for a moment that he was white and heard the call of the Beast, and your mother were an octoroon—what then?"

The girl flushed with anger:

"Such a barrier, yes! Nothi............