Two days later Rowland came back from the village. He brought the news that Keith was well on the road to recovery, and that he had had a talk with the district attorney, who had intimated discreetly that it was unlikely that grave charges would be made against his sons, owing to the disposition of the Keiths to drop the matter. The boys might be charged with disorderly conduct and fined, but an arrest would not be made and the case might not reach the court at all, owing to the sympathy of the judge, who felt that Kenneth and Martin had already been punished enough.

The next morning after this Charles found both the boys at the breakfast-table when he came down. To his surprise, they announced that they were going to help him in the field, that they were willing now to run the risk of being seen by passers-by, though they were going to keep out of sight as much as possible. So, accordingly, they both secured hoes and set to work in the cotton-field.

All that morning they worked with energy, which, no doubt, was due to their long confinement and the exhilarating sense of freedom. Mary came down herself at noon and brought them all a delightful lunch which she had prepared with her own hands. It was a warm day, with plenty of sunshine, and they all sat in the shade of some oaks which stood on the edge of the field. When the lunch was over Mary got ready to go home and the boys hastened for their hoes, to resume work.

"You are wonderful!" and Mary smiled up at Charles, who was helping her put the things back into her basket.

"Because I eat so much?" he jested.

"Because you are having the most remarkable effect on my brothers. Even Kenneth has changed. He says he wants to be like you. He sees what your industry is producing for us. We have never had such promising crops before. Then—then your talks have done them good. I mean your talks on moral lines."

"\'Moral lines,\'" he repeated, sadly. "Take it from me that I am a most unworthy adviser. I do not want to sail under false colors. Your brothers are fortunate in having had their lesson without fatal and lasting consequences. As I have told you—as I have tried to have you understand—I shall always be what I am—a man without a home, without a family, without a country, for I cannot legally cast a vote. What your brothers are escaping from—long imprisonment—I am in danger of every hour. So far I have escaped, but I may not be able to keep it up. Do you know—and I must say it now, so that you will understand thoroughly—do you know, while I dread being taken back home in shackles, I dread another thing far more, and that is being arrested here. Your friends would laugh at you for being hoodwinked by a criminal tramp in whom you have such absurd confidence as to give him food and shelter."

Mary\'s eyes were full of unshed tears. She hastily crammed the table-cloth into the basket. "Why are you talking to me like this to-day, when I was so happy?" she gulped.

"Because you insist on saying things about my—my worthiness, when I am so overwhelmingly unworthy," he answered, grimly, standing over her, his fine brow wrinkled with inner pain and bared to the sun. "Besides, as I say, you must be prepared for it if I suddenly leave without a hint of my intentions. If I could live a thousand years and be trained in the highest modes of expression I could never tell you how much peace and happiness I have found here. This," and he waved his hand over the growing crops—"this has been like the fields and meadows of Paradise into which I walked suddenly like a man who was born blind receiving sight. You say you believe in the existence of God. Sometimes I do, but I wonder really how He could have allowed me to grow unsuspectingly from infancy into dissolute manhood, and then send me here? Why did He direct my repentant steps to this spot—to this soul-soothing spot which I have enjoyed only to lose?"

"Oh, because of all you have been to us!" the gentle girl softly sobbed, as she stood by his side. She would have taken his hand but for the nearness of her brothers. "You say you have done wrong in your past. I don\'t believe it; but I shall not dispute with you over it. I only know that God could not make a man so helpful, so useful as He has you without eventually rewarding him. As Kenneth and Martin are escaping, so shall you escape. Your troubles will not last. As for your going away, you shall not. I say it. You shall not, I could not live without you. I know that as well as I know that you are standing there. I\'d follow you to the end of the world. If you went to prison I\'d go, too."

"You can\'t mean that." He bent toward the ground and uttered a low moan, and yet his face was ablaze with triumphant light.

"I do mean it," she reiterated, "and if you think your running away would save me from silly, weak-minded embarrassment, you must know that it would kill me. Yes, Charlie, I tell you now that if you leave me and I fail to see you again I\'ll end my life."

She had stepped close to him and he suddenly drew back.

"Your brothers are looking this way," he warned her.

"I don\'t care," she blurted out, desperately. "They may know. They adore you as I do. I\'ll tell them how I feel. They are human. They will understand."

"They would not want you"—Charles sighed—"want you to care for a man who may any day be thrust into jail. Brought up as you have been brought up, with your family back of you, they could not want you to care for a man whose life is the deplorable wreck mine is. Our parting is inevitable. I\'ve tried to see it otherwise for a long time, b............