room. It is a clumsy attempt to forge an order of the Klan. The white man does not live in this town capable of that act. I know these people."
"My boy, you are bewitched by the smiles of a woman to deny your own flesh and blood."
"Nonsense, father—you are possessed by an idea which has become an insane mania"
"Will you respect my wishes?" the old man broke in, angrily.
"I will not," was the clear answer. Phil turned and left the room, and the old man's massive head sank on his breast in helpless baffled rage and grief.
He was more successful in his appeal to Elsie. He convinced her of the genuineness of the threat against him. The brutal reference to his lameness roused the girl's soul. When the old man, crushed by Phil's desertion, broke down the last reserve of his strange cold nature, tore his wounded heart open to her, cried in agony over his deformity, his lameness, and the anguish with which he saw the threatened ruin of his life-work, she threw her arms around his neck in a flood of tears and cried:
"Hush, father, I will not desert you. I will never leave you, or wed without your blessing. If I find that my lover was in any way responsible for this insult, I'll tear his image out of my heart and never speak his name again!"
She wrote a note to Ben, asking him to meet her at sundown on horseback at Lover's Leap.
Ben was elated at the unexpected request. He was hungry for an hour with his sweetheart, whom he had not
