“Don’t curse it. I like it, and I am going to win it for you. You are a man of genius. Your success is as sure as if it were already won. I will not come to you a helpless pauper. I have never been taught to do anything. I should like to cook for you if I knew how, and I am going to learn how. I am going to make you the most beautiful home that the heart of a woman can dream I’d rob the world for treasure for it. I am going to rob my dear old father. He has sworn to disinherit me if I marry without his consent. He shall not do it.” “Then, don’t be long about it. You are my treasure. I can build you a snug little nest at Hambright.” “I will only ask four weeks. Now do what I tell you. Sit down and write Papa a letter telling him I am your affianced bride and ask his consent to the celebration of our marriage within three weeks. That will produce an earthquake, and something will surely happen within four weeks.” He wrote the letter, and she looked over his shoulder. “You see, dear,” she said as she kissed him good-bye, “I love Papa so tenderly. You can’t understand how close the tie is between us, perhaps some day in our own home of which I’m dreaming you may understand as you can not now,” she added softly. “Then for your sake, dearest, I hope you can win him. But I’m afraid of this plan of yours.” “Leave it with me for a month, do just as I tell you, and then I ’ll obey you all the rest of our lives,--if your orders suit me,” she playfully added. She returned to Stella Holt’s, and Gaston went back to his jail room and dreamed that night he was sleeping in the Governor’s Palace. CHAPTER XIII--A SPEECH THAT MADE HISTORY WHEN General Worth received Gaston’s brief and startling letter, the wires were hot between New York and Asheville for hours. His last message was a peremptory command to his daughter to join him immediately at Independence. When Sallie arrived at Oakwood the General was already there, and the storm broke in all its fury. At every bitter word she only quietly smiled, until the General was on the verge of collapse. Day after day he begged, pleaded, raged and finally took to hard swearing as he looked into her calm happy face. In the meantime McLeod and his henchman on the judge’s bench had seen a new light. The excitement over the arrest of Gaston seemed to have fanned the flames of the Red Shirt movement into a conflagration. He was alarmed at its meaning. The judge heard a rumour that five thousand Red Shirts were mobilising at the foot of the Blue Ridge near Hambright, and that they were going to march across the mountains, into Asheville, demolish the jail, liberate Gaston, and hang the judge who had committed him without bail. The rumour was a fake, but he was not taking any chances. He issued an order releasing Gaston on his own recognisance, and left for a vacation. Gaston returned to Hambright showered with congratulatory telegrams from every quarter of the state.