When her mother had retired McLeod drew his seat near her and again told her in burning words his love.
“Miss ‘Sallie, I have won the battle of life at its very threshold. I shall be a United States Senator in a few months. I want to lead you, my bride, into the gallery of the Senate before I walk down its aisles to take the oath. I have loved you faithfully for years. I have your father’s consent to my suit. I asked him before leaving on this trip. Surely you will not say no?”
“Allan McLeod, I do not love you. I do love another. I hate the sight of you and the sound of your voice.”
“If you do not marry Gaston, will you give me a chance?”
“If I do not marry the man of my choice, I will never marry. Now go.”
McLeod returned to the hotel with the fury of the devil seething in his soul. He determined to return to Ham-bright, and if possible entrap Gaston in dissipation and destroy his faith in Sallie’s loyalty.
He wrote to the General that he had been rejected by his daughter who still corresponded with Gaston. When General Worth received this letter he wrote in wrath to his wife, peremptorily forbidding Sallie to write another line to Gaston and closed saying, “I had trusted this matter to you, my dear, now I take it out of your hands. I forbid another line or word to this man.”
Gaston watched and waited in vain for the letter he was to receive next week. Again his soul sank with doubt and fear. What fiend was striking him with an unseen hand? He felt he should choke with rage as he thought of the infamy of such a warfare.
His mother said to him shortly after McLeod’s arrival, “Charlie, I have some bad news for you.”
“It can’t be any worse than I have, the misery of an unexplained silence of two weeks.”