Gaston was the last to return to Hambright. He walked the two miles through the silent starlit woods. He took a short cut his bare feet had travelled as a boy, and with uncovered head walked slowly through the dim aisles of great trees. It was good, this cool silence and the soft mantle of the night about his soul! The stars whispered love. The wind sighed it through the leaves. He had withdrawn from the church in his college days because he had grown to doubt everything--God, heaven, hell, and immortality. To-night as he walked slowly home he heard that wonderful sentence of the old Bible ringing down the ages, wet with tears and winged with hope, “_God is love!_” He said it now softly and reverently, and the tears came unbidden from his soul. He felt close to the heart of things. He knew he was close to the heart of nature. What if nature was only another name for God? And he whispered it again, “_God is love!_” “Ah! If I only knew it I would bow down and worship Him forever!” he cried. When Sallie reached her mother’s room that night, Mrs. Worth was seated by her window. “Why didn’t you dance?” “Didn’t care to.” “Sly Miss, you can’t fool me. You didn’t dance because Mr. Gaston couldn’t. That was a dangerously loud way to talk to him.” “How did you like him, Mama?” “Come here, dear, and sit on the edge of my chair. I wish I knew when you were in earnest about a man. I like him more than I can tell you. He talked to me so beautifully about his mother, I wanted to kiss him. He is charming.” “Why, Mama!” “I’d like him for a son. There’s a wealth of deep tenderness and manly power in him.” “Mama, you’re getting giddy!” But she kissed her mother twice when she said good night. CHAPTER X--THE HEART OF A VILLAIN McLEOD had developed into a man of undoubted power. He was but thirty-two years old, and the dictator of his party in the state. He had the fighting temperament which Southern people demand in their leaders. With this temperament he combined the skill of subtle diplomatic tact. He had no moral scruples of any kind. The problem of expediency alone interested him in ethics. McLeod’s pet aversion was a preacher, especially a Baptist or a Methodist. His choicest oaths he reserved for them. He made a study of their weaknesses, and could tell dozens of stories to their discredit, many of them true. He had an instinct for finding their weak spots and holding them up to ridicule. He bought every book of militant infidelity he could find and memorised the bitterest of it. He took special pride in scoffing at religion before the young converts of Durham’s church.