Dolly was silent. Saunders saw her white throat throbbing. "It is bound to produce a change in him," she said. "It will either kill him or regenerate him. He has a queer nature. He is a two-sided man. All his life he has been tossed back and forth between good and bad impulses. How awful it must be for him to have to remain in Atlanta and be thrown with so many who know what has happened! His friends ought to beg him to go off somewhere." "I am going to write him a letter to-day," Saunders said. "I shall assure him that my home is his, and beg him to come. Nature is the best balm for keen sorrow, and here in the mountains--" "Oh, how good and sweet and noble of you!" Dolly broke in, tremulously. "You are always thinking of others. Yes, that would do him good. A city is no place for one in his trouble. I imagine that nothing will help him much, but you can do more for him here than any one can down there." Saunders tried to meet her eyes, but they were steadily avoiding his. "My God, does she still care for him?" the planter thought. "Does she still actually love him, and will not this trouble and his presence here unite them again? She has too great a heart to harbor resentment at such a time, and she may suspect that he still loves her. If that is so, I am simply joining their hands together--I who, if I lose her, will be as miserable as he. Oh, I can't give her up! I simply can't. She is my very life." Dolly seemed to feel the force back of his agonized stare, for she kept her eyes averted. "He will come, I'm sure," she said, musingly, and, as he thought, eagerly. "When will the letter reach him?" "To-night," Saunders said. "I'll urge him to come at once. I'll make the invitation as strong as I can. Shall I--mention you--that is, would you like for me to express your--sympathies?" "Oh no, I have already written him. I wrote as soon as I heard. I couldn't help it. I cried till the paper was damp. Oh, he will know how sorry I am." "You have written!" Saunders formed the words in his brain, but they were not uttered. A storm of despair swept through him. He shook from head to foot. She and the horse floated in a swirling mist before him. "He will appreciate your letter," he managed to say, finally. "He will value it above all else." "Oh no, I don't think that." She gave him her eyes in what seemed to him to be a questioning stare. "In a deep, heartrending sorrow like his he will scarcely remember my words from one day to another. Do you know what I think, Jarvis? Down inside of him he has a deeply religious nature, and I predict that he will now simply have to turn to God. After all, God is the only resort for a man in his plight." "You may be right," Saunders returned. "His whole spirit is broken. But hope will revive. In fact, all this, sad as it is, in the long run may be good for him." Dolly shook her rein gently. "I must go," she said, smiling sadly. "Good-by."