“I was nervous and unstrung, but you can never know how real the horror of it all was upon me. “I made up my mind one night to telegraph you. I heard some one talking inside Mama’s room. I gently opened the door between our rooms, and she was praying aloud for me. I stood spellbound. I never knew how she loved me before. When at last she prayed that in the end I might have the desire of my heart, and my life be crowned with the joy of a noble man’s love, and that it might be yours, and that she should be permitted to see and rejoice with me, I could endure it no longer. “Choking with sobs I ran to her kneeling figure, threw my arms around her neck and covered her dear face with kisses. “I could not send the message I had written after that scene. “The next day Papa came, and she told him in my presence, ‘Now, General I have carried out your wishes with Sallie against my judgment. The strain has been more than you can understand. I give up the task. You can manage her now to suit yourself.’ “There was a firmness in her voice I had never heard before. He noted it, and was startled into silence by it. He had a long talk with me and repeated his orders with increasing emphasis. “The next day I was unusually depressed. I did not get out of bed all day. At night I went down to supper. The clerk at the desk of the hotel called me and said, ‘Miss Worth, I have a terrible sin to confess to you. I’m a lover myself, and I’ve done you a wrong. I returned to a young man yesterday a letter to you by request of the General. Forgive me for it, and don’t tell him I told you.’ “That night Papa and I had a fearful scene. I will not attempt to describe it. But the end was, I said to him with all the courage of despair: I am twenty-one years old. I am a free woman. I will write to whom I please and when I please and I will not ask you again. It is your right to turn me out of your house, but you shall not murder my soul! “Then for the first time in his life Papa broke down and sobbed like a child. We kissed and made up, and I am to write to you when I like. “Forgive my long silence. Write and tell me you love me. My heart is sick with the thought that I have been cowardly and failed you. Write me a long letter, and you can not say things extravagant enough for my hungry heart. “I feel utterly helpless when I think how completely you have come to rule my life. I wish you to rule it. It is all yours”---- And then she said many little foolish things that only the eyes of the one lover should ever see, for only to him could they have meaning. When he finished reading this letter, and had devoured with eagerness these foolish extravagances with which she closed it, he buried his face in his arms across his desk. A big strong boastful man whose will had defied the world! Now he was crying like a whipped child. BOOK THREE--THE THE TRIAL BY FIRE CHAPTER I--A GROWL BENEATH THE EARTH