"They can't be," said Jack bitterly--"that's what all life's for--heart happiness--love. Why, hunger and love, them's the fust things; them's the man an' the woman; them's the law unto theyselves, the animal, the instinct, the beast that's in us; the things that makes God excuse all else we do to get them--we have to have 'em. He made us so; we have to have 'em--it's His own doin'." "But," she said sweetly--"suppose it meant another to be despised, reviled, made infamous." "They'd have to be," he said sternly, for he was thinking of Richard Travis--"they'd have to be, for he made his own life." "Oh, you do not understand," she cried. "And you cannot now--but wait--wait, and it will be plain. Then you'll know all and--that I love you, Jack." He turned bitterly and walked away. CHAPTER XXII THE BROKEN THREAD For the first time in years, the next Sunday the little church on the mountain side was closed, and all Cottontown wondered. Never before had the old man missed a Sabbath afternoon since the church had been built. This was to have been Baptist day, and that part of his congregation was sorely disappointed. For an hour Bud Billings had stood by the little gate looking down the big stretch of sandy road, expecting to see the familiar shuffling, blind old roan coming: "Sum'pins happened to Ben Butler," said Bud at last--and at thought of such a calamity, he sat down and shed tears. His simple heart yearned for pity, and feeling something purring against him he picked up the cat and coddled it. "You seem to be cultivatin' that cat again, Bud Billings," came a sharp voice from the cabin window. Bud dropped the animal quickly and struck out across the mountain for the Bishop's cabin. But he was not prepared for the shock that came to his simple heart: Shiloh was dying--the Bishop himself told him so--the Bishop with a strange, set, hard look in his eyes--a look which Bud had never seen there before, for it was sorrow mingled with defiance--in that a great wrong had been done and done over his protest. It was culpable sorrow too, somewhat, in that he had not prevented it, and a heart-hardening sorrow in that it took the best that he loved. "She jes' collapsed, Bud--sudden't like--wilted like a vi'let that's stepped on, an' the Doctor says she's got no sho' at all, ther' bein' nothin' to build on. She don't kno' nothin'--ain't knowed nothin' since last night, an' she thinks she's in the mill--my God, it's awful! The little thing keeps reaching out in her delirium an' tryin' to piece the broken threads, an' then she falls back pantin' on her pillow an' says, pitful like--'_the thread--the thread is broken!_' an' that's jes' it, Bud--the thread _is_ broken!"