EHIND the dashing bays the newcomer drove down to Warren's. On the seat beside him sat a negro boy sent from the livery-stable to hold the horses. Sanders was dressed in the height of fashion, was young, of the blond type, and considered handsome. A better figure no man need have desired. The people living in the Warren neighborhood, who peered curiously out of windows, not having Dwight's affairs at heart, indulged in small wonder over the report that Helen was about to accept such a specimen of city manhood in preference to Carson or any of “the home boys.”

Alighting at the front gate, Sanders went to the door and rang. He was admitted by a colored maid and shown into the quaint old parlor with its tall, gilt-framed, pier-glass mirrors and carved mahogany furniture. The wide front, lace-curtained windows, which opened on a level with the veranda floor, let in a cooling breeze which was most agreeable in contrast to the beating heat out-of-doors.

He had only a few minutes to wait, for Helen had just returned from a visit to Linda's cottage and was in the library across the hall. He heard her coming and stood up, flushing expectantly, an eager light flashing in his eyes.

“I am taking you by surprise,” he said, as he grasped her extended hand and held it for an instant.

“Well, you know you told me when I left,” Helen said, “that it would be impossible for you to get away from business till after the first of next month, so I naturally supposed—”

“The trouble was”—he laughed as he stood courteously waiting for her to sit before doing so himself—“the trouble was that I didn't know myself then as I do now. I thought I could wait like any sensible man of my age, but I simply couldn't, Helen. After you left, the town was simply unbearable. I seemed not to want to go anywhere but to the places to which we went together, and there I suffered a regular agony of the blues. The truth is, I'm killing two birds with one stone. We were about to send our lawyer to Chattanooga to settle up a legal matter there, and I persuaded my partner to let me do it. So you see, after all, I shall not be wholly idle. I can run up there from here and back, I believe, in the same day.”

“Yes, it is not far,” Helen answered. “We often go up there to do shopping.”

“I'm going to confess something else,” Sanders said, flushing slightly. “Helen, you may not forgive me for it, but I've been uneasy.”

“Uneasy?” Helen leaned as far back in her chair as she could, for he had bent forward till his wide, hungry eyes were close to hers.

“Yes, I've fought the feeling every day and night since you left. At times my very common-sense would seem to conquer and I'd feel a little better about it, but it would only be a short time till I'd be down in the dregs again.”

“Why, what is the matter?” Helen asked, half fearfully.

“It was your letters, Helen,” he said, his handsome face very grave as he leaned towards her.

“My letters? Why, I wrote as often—even often-er—than I promised,” the girl said.

“Oh, don't think me over-exacting,” Sanders implored her with eyes and voice. “I know you did all you agreed to do, but somehow—well, you know you seemed so much like one of us down there that I had become accustomed to thinking of you as almost belonging to Augusta; but your letters showed how very dear Darley and its people are to you, and I was obliged to—well, face the grim fact that we have a strong rival here in the mountains.”

“I thought you knew that I adore my old home,” she said, simply.

“Oh yes, I know—most people do—but, Helen, the letter you wrote about the dance your friends—your 'boys,' as you used to call them—gave you at that quaint club, why, it is simply a piece of literature. I've read it over and over time after time.”

“Oh, I only wrote as I felt, out of a full heart,” the girl said. “When you meet them, and know them as I do, you will not wonder at my fidelity—at my enthusiasm over that particular tribute.”

Sanders laughed. “Well, I suppose I am simply jealous—jealous not alone for myself, but for Augusta. Why, you can't imagine how you are missed. A party of the old crowd went around to your aunt's as usual the Wednesday following your departure, but we were so blue we could hardly talk to one another. Helen, the spirit of our old gatherings was gone. Your aunt actually cried, and your uncle really drank too much brandy and soda.”

“Well, you mustn't think I don't miss them all,” Helen said, deeply touched. “I think of them every day. It was only that I had been away so long that it was glorious to get back home—to my real home again. I love it down there; it is beautiful; you were all so lovely to me, but this here is different.”

“That's what I felt in reading your letters,” Sanders said. “A tone of restful content and happiness was in every line you wrote. Somehow, I wanted you, in my selfish heart, to be homesick for us so that you would”—the visitor drew a deep breath—“be all the more likely to—to consent to live there, you know, some day, permanently.” Helen made no reply, and Sanders, flushing deeply, wisely turned the subject, as he rose and went to a window and drew the curtain aside.

“Do you see those horses?” he asked, with a smile. “I brought them thinking I might prevail on you to take a drive with me this morning. I have set my heart on seeing some of the country around the town, and I want to do it with you. I hope you can go.”

“Oh, not to-day! I couldn't think of it to-day!” Helen cried, impulsively.

“Not to-day?” he said, crestfallen.

“No. Haven't you heard about Mam' Linda's awful trouble?”

“Oh, that is her son!” Sanders said. “I heard something of it at the hotel. I see. She really must be troubled.”

“It is a wonder it hasn't killed her,” Helen answered. “I have never seen a human being under such frightful torture.”

“And can nothing be done?” Sanders asked. “I'd really like to be of use—to help, you know, in some way.”

“There is nothing to be done—nothing that can be done,” Helen said. “She knows that, and is simply waiting for the end.”

“It's too bad,” Sanders remarked, awkwardly. “Might I go to see her?”

“I think you'd better not,” said the girl. “I don't believe she would care to see any but very old friends. I used to think I could comfort her, but even I fail now. She is insensible to anything but that one haunting horror. She has tried a dozen times to go over to the mountains, but my father and Uncle Lewis have prevented it. That mob, angry as they are, might really kill her, for she would fight for her young like a tigress, and people wrought up like those are mad enough to do anything.”

“And some people think the negro may not really be guilty, do they not?” Sanders asked.

“I am sure he is not,” Helen sighed. “I feel it; I know it.”

There was the sound of a closing gate, and Helen looked out.

“It is my father,” she said. “Perhaps he has heard something.”

Leaving her guest, she went out to the steps. “Whose turn-out?” the Major asked, with admiring curiosity, indicating the horses and buggy.

“Mr. Sanders has come,” she said, simply. “He's in the parlor. Is there any news?”

“Nothing.” The old man removed his hat and wiped his perspiring brow. “Nothing except that Carson Dwight has gone over there on a fast horse. Linda sent him a message, begging him to make one more effort, and he went. All his friends tried to stop him, but he dashed out of town like a madman. He won't accomplish a thing, and it may cost him his life, but he's the right sort, daughter. He's got a heart in him as big as all out-of-doors. Blackburn told him Dan Willis was over there, a raging demon in human shape, but it only made Carson the more determined. His father saw him and ordered him back, and was speechless with fury when Carson simply waved his hand and rode on. Go back to the parlor. I'll join you in a minute.”

“Have you heard anything?” Sanders asked, as Helen re-entered the room and stood white and distraught before him.

She hesitated, her shifting glance on the floor, and then she stared at him almost as one in a dream. “He has heard nothing except—except that Carson Dwight has gone over there. He has gone. Mam' Linda begged him to make one other effort and he couldn't resist her. She—she was good to his mother and to him when he was a child, and he feels grateful. She thinks he is the only one that can help. She told me last night that she believed in him as she once believed in God. He can do nothing, but he knew it would comfort her for him to try.”

“This Mr. Dwight is one of your—your old friends, is he not?”

Sanders' face was the playground of conflicting emotions as he stood staring at her.

“Yes,” Helen answered; “one of my best and truest.”

“He has undertaken a dangerous thing, has he not?” Sanders managed to say.

“Dangerous?” Helen shuddered. “He has an enemy there who is now seeking his life. They are sure to meet. They have already quarrelled, and—about this very thing.”

She sat down in the chair she had just left and Sanders stood near her. There was a voice in the hall. It was the Major ordering a servant to bring in mint julep, and the next moment he was in the parlor hospitably introducing himself to the visitor.

Seeing her opportunity, Helen rose and left them together. She went up to her room, with heavy, dragging footsteps, and stood at the window overlooking the Dwight garden and lawn.

Carson knew that Sanders was in town, she told herself, in gloomy self-reproach. He knew his rival was with her, and right now as the poor boy was speeding on to—his death, he thought Sanders was making love to her. Helen bit her quivering lip and clinched her fingers. “Poor boy!” she thought, almost with a sob, “he deserves better treatment than that.”