By this time Viola had brought her perverse little heart into harmony with her real wish and, having quieted her nerves by a strong effort of will, she was ready to heed her mother's summons to enter the drawing-room. As she stepped across the threshold there was a moment of embarrassment during which neither spoke; but it was only for a moment, Jasper Very being too full of gratitude to remain long silent. "Miss Viola," he said, grasping her hand, "I have come this morning to thank you for your great kindness in apprising me of Sam Wiles' plot to injure me. I am under a thousand obligations to you for what you did."
"Do not speak of that, Mr. Very; it was a thing any friend would have done. But tell me whether or not you escaped from their intentions without any injury to yourself."
"Yes, thanks to your promptness, I was able to enlist some friends on my behalf, and with them and some officers of the law we were able to outwit the ruffians and beat them at their own game." He then laid before her in detail the events of the past night.
Viola listened with closest attention to the narrative. When Jasper spoke of being surrounded by the outlaws and their threats, the color left her cheeks; but when he told how their enemies were overcome and the ludricrous predicament of Turner as he sat in the pot of tar, a sigh of relief escaped her lips, which was followed by a hearty laugh. However, her mood soon changed, and with a serious look coming into her blue eyes she said: "I am sure those moonshiners are a menace to our community. They are becoming more and more hardened and reckless. I fear that they will yet do some of us great injury. They doubtless hate papa, who has to sentence them to prison, and they are foes of all order-loving men and women in this region. As to Sam Wiles, I cannot bear to be near him. His very presence repels and frightens me. When he looked at me in church last Sunday night, I shuddered. It seemed as though a venomous snake had put its folds around my neck. Zibe Turner, called the monster dwarf, seems to me to be almost less than human. He combines the ferocity of the tiger, the slyness of the fox, and the shape of a monkey. I am doubly alarmed when he is near."
"This is the natural recoil of virtue away from vice," said Jasper Very. "God has given to woman an intuitive sense which, without any long process of reasoning, shows her when a man is bad. It is her protection against his greater strength. It is the Almighty's gift to her, and is beyond the value of rubies. If she will use it, she need never be deceived as to a man's inner character."
"I suppose that is why we women can trust some people from the moment we see them and are suspicions of others from the very first."
"Undoubtedly it is; and all women should beware of men whose persons, looks, or acts repel that fine discriminating sense within them. Every man should ask himself the question: 'Have I sufficient moral integrity and nobility to pass muster before the eyes of a pure-minded woman!' If he can say 'Yes' to this, he is to be congratulated."
"I am afraid most men are so self-sufficient that they think the other sex is blind to their faults, and will tolerate and cling to them whether or not."
"They may think so when they reflect only lightly; but when they consider deeply, they know that they can receive the respect of good women only when they are worthy of it. This should stimulate them to be knightly in character—pure, true, gentle, kind, brave, thoroughly good."
"I am glad you have such a high ideal, and trust you will live up to it. If so, you will be my Sir Knight, to lead me to Uncle Pete's cabin. His little girl is down with the measles, and I have promised to act as doctor and nurse for the poor child."