Then she broke impulsively away, and he watched her walk back through the shadows and under the clouds.
At the turning of the path across the meadow, he saw another shadow join her. It was Clay, and the two went through the twilight together.
Travis turned. “It is right—it is the solution—he alone deserves her. I must reap my past, reap it and see my harvest blighted and bound with rotten twine. But, oh, to know it when it is too late—to know that I might love her and could be happy—then to have to give it up—now—now—when I need it most. The Deed,” he said—“we are the deed of all we think and feel.”
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MODEL MILL
The discovery of coal and iron made both the old Bishop and Westmoreland rich. Captain Tom sent James Travis to West Point and Archie B. to Annapolis, and their records were worthy of their names.
And now, five years after the great fire, there might be seen in Cottontown, besides two furnaces, whose blazing turrets lighted the valley with Prosperity's torch—another cotton mill, erected by the old Bishop.