It was long past midnight when he rose, took his father's sword from the wall where it hung, and unsheathed it. A vision of an open fireplace in a log house rose before him, his father in the foreground looking like a picture of Stonewall Jackson. The kind brave eyes that were the soul of honor gazed at him. “You damned scoundrel! You damned scoundrel!” Jeff accused himself in a low voice. He knew his little friend was good and innocent, but he knew too she had inherited a temperament that made her very innocence a anger to her. Every instinct of chivalry called upon him to protect her from the weakness she did not even guess. She had given him her kindness and her friendship, the dear child! It was up to him to be worthy of them. If he failed her he would be a creature forever lost to decency. There was a sob in his throat as Jeff pushed the blade back into the worn scabbard and rehung the sword upon the wall. But the eyes in his lifted face were very bright. He too would keep his sword unstained and the flag of honor flying. All through the next day and the next his resolution held. He took pains not to see her alone, though there was not an hour of the day when he could get away from the thought of her. The uneasy consciousness was with him that the issue was after all only postponed, that decisions of this kind must be made again and again so long as opportunity and desire go together. And there were moments of reaction when his will was like a rope of sand, when the longing for her swept over him like a great wave. As Jeff slipped quietly into the hall the door of her room opened. Their eyes met, and presently hers fell. She was troubled and ashamed at what she had done, but plainly eager in her innocence to be forgiven. Jeff spoke gently. “Nellie.” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Aren't we ever going to be friends again?” Through the open door he could see the fire glowing in the grate and the chocolate set on the little table. He knew she had prepared for his coming and how greatly she would be hurt if he rejected her advances. “Of course we're friends.” “Then you'll come in, just for a few minutes.” He hesitated. “Please,” she whispered. “Or I'll know you don't like me any more.” Jeff followed her into the room and closed the door behind him. Part 2 Two days before the election Big Tim's detective wired from Shelby, Tennessee, the outline of a story that got two front page columns in both the _Advocate_ and the _Herald._ Jefferson Davis Farnum was the son of a thief, of a rebel soldier who had spent seven years in the penitentiary for looting the bank of which he was cashier. In addition to featuring the news story both papers handled the subject at length in their editorial columns. They wanted to know whether the people of this beautiful state were willing to hand over the Commonwealth to be plundered by the reckless gang of which this son of a criminal was the head.