“Isn’t she lovely?” Inez asked, still smoothing his hair. “I wish you could see her mother, she is so grand and handsome and proud looking. She wanted you for a guide, and because she could not have you she didn’t go on a single trail. She had heard you were a gentleman and preferred you to some of the rough guides in the valley. I wish you had been here.” Mr. Rayborne was not particularly interested in Mrs. Prescott. He was more anxious for Inez to leave him and was glad when, with a goodnight kiss, she went back to the piazza and he was alone with his thoughts. He could not account for the feeling which had come upon him, bringing memories of people and events which had but little in common with what he was now. Through the open door came a breath of wind laden with the perfume of flowers from Anita’s grave, and as he inhaled it he thought of the dead leaves of a rose he had gathered long ago and been foolish enough to keep through all the years of change which had come and gone since he hid them away in the first stage of his youthful passion. Leaving the house he went to Anita’s grave and standing there alone with the dark woods in the background and the moonlight falling around him he talked, sometimes to himself and sometimes to the dead at his feet. “Little Anita,” he whispered, “I wish I were lying beside you with all the past blotted out. And there is more of that past than you ever suspected. I loved you, Anita, and when your dying eyes looked at me I knew what they said and swore I would do your bidding. But a stronger will than mine has controlled me until now when I am trying to break the bands of steel. What is there in that girl’s face and voice and gestures which makes me struggle to be free. Is there a God, and would he help me if I were to ask him? I used to pray in the old church, miles and miles and miles away across a continent, but I fear it was only a form. God wouldn’t have let me fall so far if he ever had my hand in his. If I were to stretch it out now would he take it and help me?” He put it out as if appealing to someone for aid; then dropped it hopelessly and said, “No, I’ve sinned too deeply for that. If I am helped at all I must do it myself, and I swear it here by Anita’s grave that not a hair of that girl’s head shall be harmed if I can prevent it, and I think I can. It says somewhere, ‘Resist the devil and he will flee from you,’ but I guess the one who said it didn’t know Tom Hardy!” It was late when he re-entered the house. Inez and Fanny had gone to their room and were asleep, but Tom still sat on the piazza, with his feet on the railing and his hands clasped behind his head. “I knew he’d wait for me,” Mr. Rayborne said, “but I’ve sworn, and I’ll keep my vow, so help me God.”