"You shall go straight to your mother," he said firmly. "Tell her everything." "But I promised--gave an honorable promise, a solemn promise that I would not tell." "There can be no such thing as an honorable promise to the kind of a man who does not know the meanin' of the word. There can be no such thing as a sacred promise to a man who has no more conception of sacredness than a beast. The man who has brought you to this trouble, of whatever kind it may be, is unfit for consideration. Go to your mother. If you don't go _I'll carry you there in my arms_." A moment she hesitated. Then she arose. He twined his fingers around her arm and without speaking they crossed the cellar. At the door she paused. "Come on, Ann," he said, and they went up the steps together. Entering the kitchen, Abe Lincoln said, "I found your little girl in the cellar--in trouble. She has come to tell her mother about it. I'll go fetch the potatoes." CHAPTER XXV FATHER AND DAUGHTER After Ann Rutledge confided her heart-troubling secret to her mother, Mrs. Rutledge lost no time in laying the matter before her husband. She feared it would be hard to make him see that John McNeil's conduct toward Ann had been honorable, and John Rutledge believed in the kind of honor that makes a man's word as good as his bond, and would take advantage of no situation to perpetrate an injustice. He listened in silence as Mrs. Rutledge told him Ann's secret, the secret that was changing the glad-hearted girl into a quiet, nervous woman. Several times he seemed about to speak. He listened, however, until the end, but Mrs. Rutledge knew he was angry. "Now, John," she counseled, "don't be too hard on John McNeil. What he said may all be true. He may go back and get his people and bring them right here as he said." "Maybe he will--but does that change the fact that he played double? Does that change the fact that during his years of plenty he has never helped those of his own flesh and blood who may have suffered? John McNeil is as cold a trade-driver as ever hit the trail to the West, and if he comes back here----" "Now, John, be careful. Aside from the awful effect the whole thing has had on poor Ann, there may be no real sin committed." "Aside from the effect on our Ann? My God! how much more sin could a man commit unless he had ruined her reputation--and if he had done that----" and John Rutledge arose and paced the floor. "But he didn't. How can you let such a thought come into your head about Ann? Don't get yourself all worked up over a straw man."