"But we must begin," said Eddring, insistently, once more. "There must be some law. We'll go in and surrender. I'll take your case." "You mean you'll be my lawyer at the trial?" "Yes, I'll defend you. But as for you and me, we're for the state, after all. We've got to prosecute this entire system which prevails down here to-day. We're growing more and more lawless all over the South, all over America. Now, we don't want that. We don't believe in it. Then what can we do? How can we get to the bottom of this thing? Cal, I reckon you and I are brave enough to begin." Even as they were speaking, they heard a knock at the door, and Miss Lady once more stood looking in hesitatingly upon these stern-faced men. Upon her own face there was horror, terror. "I don't know what to do!" she cried, her hands at her temples. "I don't know where to go. You tell me this is my home, and I have nowhere else to go, but this is a _terrible_ place. Why, I have just heard about what happened--about Delphine and those others. Why, sir,"--this to Eddring,--"you knew it all the time. You saw. You knew!" "Yes," said Eddring, "that is why I would not let you walk down that little path on the island. I didn't want you to know--we didn't want you ever to know." "Yes, Miss Lady," affirmed Blount, "we knew. We didn't want you to know." "But is there no law?" she cried. "Why do you do these things? The punishment is for the officers, for the courts, and not for you. Why, how can I _look_ at you without shivering?" "What shall we do, Miss Lady?" asked Blount, coldly. "What's the right thing to do? Listen. We've done this thing for _you_. You're a white girl. The white women of this country--if we _didn't_ do these things, what chance would you and your like have in this country? Now, we've done it for you, and we'll finish the way you say. You're to decide. Shall we go in and surrender? Shall we be tried? Remember, it is our own lives at stake, then." "We will go in, and we will meet our trial," said John Eddring, rising and interrupting, even as Miss Lady buried her face in her hands. "We will begin, right here." CHAPTER XVII THE LAW OF THE LAND One morning in the early fall, the little town of Clarksville, county-seat of Tullahoma County, was thronged with people from all the country round about. There was in progress the trial of certain white citizens under indictment for murder, among these some of the most respected men of that region. The case of Colonel Calvin Blount had been chosen as the first of many.