“How could I without hypocrisy? The Judge and I had been uncompromising enemies. Could I tear my heart open and let the vulgar world see the deep secret of my love for you?” “You loved me then?” she broke in with surprise. “From the moment you crossed this old hall the night I met you.” Loved me when you refused to answer my appeal in person the day I wrote you?” “I refused because I loved you.” She looked at him a moment with a feeling of sudden fear. For the first time she realised with a shock that her imperious will to master his life was not the only force at work. The shadowy figure of Fate stood grim and silent before her. “The man who wins my heart,” she said firmly, “can hold no reservations--he must be all mine, body and soul. He asks as much of me. I demand the same. Are you ready to place your life in my hands as I am asked to place mine in yours?” “Without reservation,” he answered. “I must be frank with you,” she said, turning her eyes appealingly on him. “Since the awful night I saw my father sitting dead in that chair with those masked figures, white, silent and terrible behind me, I have had a morbid curiosity mingled with terror for everything and everyone connected with the Klan. I have heard that you are a member?” John suddenly knelt before her and took her hand. “Here on my knees before you and before God--and when I am before you I am in the presence of God!--I call the spirit of the dead back on the wings of this storm to-night into this hall to witness when I swear to you that I am innocent of any knowledge of his death!” “And there shall be not one shadow between us? “Not one. Every secret of my life shall be laid bare before I’d dare claim you as my wife. I only beg to-night one word of love from your dear lips. You believe me when I swear to you, on my honour, my life, my love that I am innocent?” “Yes, I believe and trust you!” He bowed and kissed her fingers reverently. “And now you must show that you trust me before I speak,” she went on dreamily--“you are in reality the Chief of the Klan in North Carolina, are you not?” John’s hand trembled, his lips quivered, and a look of mortal anguish overspread his face. “Please don’t ask me that yet?” he begged. “You are afraid to trust me?” she said reproachfully. “I trust you implicitly,” he cried, pressing her hand, “but do not ask me now!” “The hands of Southern women made those white and scarlet costumes,” she persisted. “May I not share at least one of its secrets with them?” “Remember that conditions have changed!” he urged--“A price is set on the head of every member of the Klan. The South now swarms with spies--the Government is straining every nerve to learn the secrets of the order--have I the right even to breathe the name of the Klan while another’s life may hang on my word?” “I see,” she cried with scorn, rising. “The daughter of a murdered ‘Scalawag’ judge may not be trusted as other loyal women of the proud old aristocratic South!”