The Long Lane's Turning Part 40

They heard him in silence, but across the mind of the older man was flas.h.i.+ng a stern epitaph--"He hath digged a pit for his neighbour, and hath fallen into the midst of it himself." Presently he sighed--his thought had s.h.i.+fted to the unknown man he had pardoned that night.

"It has been a singular evening," he said. "I am sorry Sevier was not here earlier--when our convict came. Strange that even you, Treadwell, should not have seen his face! I wonder," he added musingly, "if we shall ever know who he was!"

The Judge shook his head--the same wonder was in his mind. Treadwell's face was inscrutable. The Governor's gaze strayed up the long porch where at the further end a girl stood with the Governor-Elect in the rosy glow of the lanterns. He laid his gaunt hand affectionately on the Judge's shoulder.

"Brave and true!" he said. "When I think of what she told us tonight, Beverly, I have no words!"

Treadwell broke the silence. He spoke with a little flush mounting in his face, "I hope I need not say that I--that what we have heard to-night--"

But the Judge stopped him. "My dear Treadwell!" he said, in gentle reproof. "My dear Treadwell! We are all gentlemen!"

The Governor-Elect and the girl who stood beside him lingered a little longer in the shadow of the crimson rambler. Down the avenue beyond the great gate, the flambeaux cl.u.s.tered and faded and diminished, the band music had throbbed to silence and about them was only the silver, dew-silent night. They stood in silence. The old house behind them was full of jovial voices and laughter, and every window was glowing with lights, but where they stood was quiet and peace.

At length he took both her hands and laid them together, beneath his own, upon his breast.

"'Hours fly, flowers die'" (he quoted), "'New men, new ways, Pa.s.s by; Love stays.'"

He lifted the hands he held to his lips. "Do you know the one thing that has come to me out of it all?"

"Yes," she murmured, "I know."

"It came to me in the night, last night. Up to then it had seemed fate's whipper-in that was driving me. But then, when I saw the gulf opening at my feet, and saw no way out, and ceased to struggle, I knew all at once that fate is only an empty name; that it was--G.o.d."

He felt her fingers quiver in his clasp.

"There was an Eye that watched and a Hand that overruled," he said slowly. "Even the evil and the hatred--the temptation, the sin and the pain--the penalty--It overruled them all. Drink made the man who shot Craig a criminal--yet but for that burglary you might now be Craig's wife! Drink sent me to Craig's house that night--yet but for that journey I could not have saved you. Drink closed the prison door on me, but only there--I know it now!--could I have mastered it! And if I have won in this campaign and if I sit--with you, my darling!--in the Mansion on the Hill, it is because of what I learned within those walls--the knowledge of what drink has done to men!"

He released her hands and looked up into the heavens.

"It shall vanish from this state," he said. "And it shall vanish from this Union! I am as sure of it as if the sign of its pa.s.sing were written there in the sky!"

She caught his arm. "See!" she said.

Far away, city-ward, over the trees, against the deep, dark vault, the dazzling, many-pointed blaze of a rocket paled and sank into the darkness.

BOOKS BY

HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES

(Mrs. Post Wheeler)

The Long Lane's Turning The Valiants of Virginia The Kingdom of Slender Swords Satan Sanderson The Castaway Hearts Courageous A Furnace of Earth

Tales From d.i.c.kens