Lewis Rand

by Mary Johnston

She rose from the chair and leaned, panting, against the window-frame. "Was there no other way—"

"It seemed the simplest way," he answered quietly. "There was no harm done, and it answered my purpose." He paused, then went on. "My purpose was to detain Mr. Rand from so rash and so fatal a step until it was too late for him to take it."

She turned from the window. "You are generous," she said, in a stifled voice. "I ask your pardon for my hard thoughts of you. Oh, for a storm and a wind to blow! It is too hot, too heavy a night. I never wish to smell the honeysuckle again."

He followed her back to the light of the candles. "Listen to me for a moment. I do not think that you know—I am not sure that I know—the iron strength of the laws that rule an ambitious nature. Ambition becomes an atmosphere; the man whose temperament and self-training enure him to it breathes it at last as though it were his native air. It becomes that—an inner and personal clime, the source and spring of countless actions, great and small. The light, too, is refracted, and the great background of life is not seen quite truly. It is, I think, an enchanted air, into which a man drifts upon a river of dreams and imaginations—and how hard to reascend, against the current!" He paused, stood a moment with downcast eyes, measuring the table with his hand, then drew a quick breath and spoke on. "Given his parentage and descent, his unhappy and hardly-treated boyhood, the visions, the rebellions, the longings with which he must have walked the hot and rank tobacco-fields; given the upward struggle of his youth, so determined and so successful; given the courage, the hardihood, the wide outlook of a man who has neither inherited nor been granted, but has himself hewn out and built up his holding in life; given genius and sense of power, will, perseverance, and the fatal knowledge that all events and all currents habitually bend to his hand,—given all this and opportunity"—He raised his head and met her eyes. "It is not strange and it is not monstrous that Mr. Rand should have involved himself, to a greater or less degree, in this attempt upon the West. God is my witness, I would not have you think it strange and monstrous! Ambition is, perhaps, the most human of all qualities. Many and many an ambitious man has been loved, loved passionately, loved deservedly!—many a conqueror, many a one of those who failed to conquer and who were called by an ugly name! Love does not love the ambition, it loves that which is love-worthy below the iron grating and the tracery of false gold! As the world goes, Lewis Rand and I are enemies; but I could swear to you to-night that I see, that I have always seen, a greatness in him! I believe it to be distorted and darkened, but the quality of it is greatness. Were I he"—He paused for a moment, then continued, with dignity. "Were I he, I would say to the lady who, for love, had given me her hand in wedlock,—'Love me still. My land is one of storm and darkness, of rude wastes and frowning strongholds whence sometimes issue robber bands. But it is not a petty land, and side by side with all that is wrong runs not a little that is heroic and right! Love me still and help me there, even though—even though I am forsworn to you!"

"I would not have you think," she said clearly,—"I would not have you even lightly dream, that his country is not my country! I love him!"

"I know that you do."

"There is no place so dark that I would not wait for him there as for the dawn. There is no flood I would not cross to him; there is no deep pit in which I would not seek him, were he fallen there! He has done wrong, and I am unhappy for it. But never think, never dream, that, though I see the dark and broken ground, I would leave that country, or am less than wholly loyal to its King!"

"I have neither thought nor dreamed it."

"When I—when I learned this thing, it shook me so! My brain whirled, and then I thought of you and called to you."

"There is no service to which you could call me that I would not thankfully render. I am your friend and your people's friend. There is one thing more I should like to say to you. Do not fear for him. There is no reason to believe that this will ever be discovered. The lips of those who know are sealed."