“Have I displeased you? You do not share a pride in my work, Dorothy?” “Since you guess it,” she answered, “I may be spared the pain of confessing.” Elliott was silent for a time, but his expression showed the deep disappointment he felt. At length in an undertone, he said: “Don’t reproach me. Of course you have not felt this as I feel it, being so differently situated and looking at it from another point of view.” Seeing that he paused for her answer, Dorothy replied: “I have considered all this. But do you not see what a reflection your clever plot is upon us, or what a gross injustice it will do the South?” “Cold facts may sound harsh, but you will be all the better for your chastening. The South will advance under it.” “I wish I could believe it; the chances are all against us. Why did you ever want to take such a risk?” and the air of the little, slender, determined maiden marked the uncompromising rebel. Elliott deliberately arose. His face was earnest and full of a strange power. “It hurts me to displease you, Dorothy, but I must direct my own will and conscience. To hold your respect and my own, I must be a man,--not a compromise.” There was such lofty sentiment in that calm utterance from his heart that Dorothy, acknowledging the strength of it, could not resist the impulse of admiring compassion and stifling any lingering feeling of resentment, she quietly laid her hand on his and looked into his face with eyes that Fate must have purposed to be wells of comfort to a grieving mind. At her touch Elliott started, looked down and met her soothing gaze. “If it were not for our mistakes, failures and disappointments, the love we bear our treasures would soon perish for lack of sustenance. It is the failures in life that make one gentle and forgiving with the weak and I almost believe it is the failures of others that mostly endear them to us. Do what you may, let it bring what it will, all my love and sanction goes with it,” she said softly. CHAPTER XIV. October days! The sumacs drabbled in the summer’s blood flaunt boldly, and green, gold and purple shades entrance the eye. The mullein stands upon the brown land a lonely sentinel. The thistle-down floats ghost-like through the haze, and silvery disks of a spider’s web swing twixt the cornrows. Sunday. Elliott remained at home until late in the afternoon. While he feared the result, he still held to his fixed resolve to go that day and definitely ascertain what was to come of his love for Dorothy. He said to Mr. Field, as he started off, “I shall not be back to supper--I am going to see Mr. Carr.” His voice was hopeful and his face wore a smile. His nephew’s assumed hopefulness had long been more painful to Mr. Field than this despondency he sought to cover by it. It was so unlike hopefulness, had in it something so fierce in its determination--was so hungry and eager, and yet carried such a consciousness of being forced, that it had long touched his heart.