"There was an Eye that watched and a Hand that overruled," he said
slowly. "Even the evil and the hatred--the temptation, the sin and the
pain--the penalty--It overruled them all. Drink made the man who shot
Craig a criminal--yet but for that burglary you might now be Craig's
wife! Drink sent me to Craig's house that night--yet but for that
journey I could not have saved you. Drink closed the prison door on
me, but only there--I know it now!--could I have mastered it! And if I
have won in this campaign and if I sit--with you, my darling!--in the
Mansion on the Hill, it is because of what I learned within those
walls--the knowledge of what drink has done to men!"
He released her hands and looked up into the heavens.
"It shall vanish from this state," he said. "And it shall vanish from
this Union! I am as sure of it as if the sign of its passing were
written there in the sky!"
She caught his arm. "See!" she said.
Far away, city-ward, over the trees, against the deep, dark vault, the
dazzling, many-pointed blaze of a rocket paled and sank into the
darkness.
BOOKS BY
HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES
(Mrs. Post Wheeler)
The Long Lane's Turning
The Valiants of Virginia
The Kingdom of Slender Swords
Satan Sanderson
The Castaway
Hearts Courageous
A Furnace of Earth
Tales From Dickens
End of Project Gutenberg's The Long Lane's Turning, by Hallie Erminie Rives
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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