"Won't you put this life behind you, Lem, and come down where God has granted a paradise—a paradise of peace? Down where nature has unfurled a grassy, level land and men walk in the open and can see each other's faces? Down thah, Lem, where hearts beat uncontaminated beyond the maelstrom of feudal hate, and where all men are brothers—down in the land of hope—hope that makes a song of life—in the land of hope, Lem,—a cloudless, sunshiny fairy world—where dreams come true?
"You said you would love to go to Lexington to my grandfather, but you won't leave the mountains until you have killed the revenuer and Sap McGill. Is that evidence that you love me, Lem? To-morrow morning I'll ride Rajah back alone. I don't believe that you love me, Lem—I can't believe it——"
Lem got to his feet. He was very white in the moonlight now. He picked up a stick off the ground. He rested the butt of his rifle against the block and, placing the muzzle of the gun against his breast, he reached down and touched the trigger with the end of the stick before Belle-Ann realized what he was up to.
"Belle-Ann, say that I don't love yo' agin an' I'll blow my heart out." Gently and quickly she took the stick out of his hand in alarm.
"Lem, there is a way out for you—there is a sustaining power that will help you, if you will only have faith," she pleaded. "'Know ye the truth and the truth shall make ye free.'"
"But he kilt my old pap,—an' my good old maw, Belle-Ann. I'd alers heer their spirits a cryin' ef I went away an' didn't git th' revenuer's blood," he protested for the twentieth time. "An' didn't McGill try t' kill me jest yisterday?"
"Lem," she said, "I tell you what we'll do. We'll go down to the church—we'll go down thah—you and me and Buddy—down thah by the altar where your father died. God won't deny you thah. We will offer up a little prayer for pap and maw, and you will ask God to show you the truth of my words—that it is wrong for you to hang back and sacrifice your future for the blood of your enemies. Take my word for it, Lem—God will surely lay His hand on those who have harmed you. Will you go, Lem—come now—will you go with Belle-Ann?"
For the first time Lem's face lost a measure of its despair. His eyes lighted up with the advent of an emollient hope, and a half-smile touched his lips.
"Come 'long, Belle-Ann," he agreed, "let's do thet." And a prayer mounted in Belle-Ann's breast as she called to Buddy to come along and bring a lantern. Then hand in hand they wound their way down the moonlit mountain-side toward the deserted church. And up from the girl's heart a spa of hope was abubble. The joy of life was again strong upon her. There was a song in her soul and the blithesome days of yore were rippling in her veins.
The forsaken church stood out big and white, magnified in a pool of moonlight, like a runic tomb guarding the memory of a martyr. With a ruthless swish, the laurel wall that hemmed the clearing suddenly parted, and the next instant the scathed, battered semblance of a man-being crawled out into the silver moonshine.