“There’s a good deal in that, Horace,” he acquiesced, “and I think we’d better take it up in the Rocky Mountain Club. But while we’re appealing to the northern voters we mustn’t forget the South. We must extend and increase our Underground work, because it is making slave property most precarious all along the border states. The more slaves we can run off the more uncertain the whole institution becomes, and the more angry we make the South--and there’s nothing irritates them so much as this--the sooner the crisis will come. War is the only possible solution of this problem, friends. So I say, let’s bring on the crisis as soon as possible, and fight it out!” At that moment there was a knock at the office door and a request for Dr. Ware’s services in another part of the town. The two visitors went down the hill again and Rhoda, invited by the bright sunshine, strolled down the veranda and across the yard to the grape arbor. She wanted to be alone and think matters over, find where she stood and allay the turmoil between her heart and her conscience. As she walked down the path she saw that Jim was already making preparations for the spring. This great bed was to be filled again with white petunias--they had liked it so much last year. Again she seemed to sense their odor, as on that June night, and to hear a voice vibrant with tones of love. No, she could not think here,--her heart would not let her. She turned away and hurried to her room. But there too every inch of space was like a seductive voice calling to her with the memories of the last few days. With a sudden grip upon herself--a quick indrawing of breath and a pressure of teeth upon her lip, the outward signs of inner process of taking herself in hand--she went deliberately downstairs and out into the woodshed. There she sat down upon a chunk of wood and faced the little room, with its door heedlessly exposed and open, just as the marshal had left it. The sight stung her, as she had known it would, with an accusation of apostasy. But her spirit rose up quickly in self-defense. “No, I didn’t desert our cause, even in thought,” she declared to herself. “I’m not so bad as that, I hope. I only thought I could marry Jeff and still help it along. But I’m afraid I couldn’t. Yes, I know what mother said, and for a little while it did seem possible--just because I wanted it so much, I suppose. But mother and I are so different. I couldn’t be in the midst of things that I thought were wrong without trying to make them right. Jeff would free his slaves if I asked him to--I’m sure he would.”