And bring to it, ’mid sounds of rarest melody,
The peace of mind, the calm, that waking, no one knows.
Susie Cornelia Connolly.
The Shadow of the Attacoa
By Thornwell Jacobs
SYNOPSIS OF PRECEDING CHAPTERS
Commenced in the April number.
Ervin McArthur, bearing the nickname of “Satan” on account of his ungovernable temper, learns printing at the office of the Dunvegan (N. C.) Democrat and loves Colonel Preston’s daughter. The colonel, objecting to a love affair between his aristocratic daughter and a son of “poor whites,” shifts the youth to a place on the Charleston Chronicle. Here, the Civil War coming on, he distinguishes himself by his journalistic ability and by his inventions of war-engines. In these last he is ably assisted by Helen Brooks, a Boston girl visiting Charleston relatives. She learns to love the inventor and his cause, and he struggles between his allegiance to Helen Preston and his newly awakened love. He returns to Dunvegan on furlough and in an altercation with his old time chum, Henry Bailey, the latter meets his death. Ervin escapes, and another friend, Ernest Lavender, is tried and convicted. Ervin confesses and is tried, but cleared on proof discovered by Helen Preston that the crime was committed by Mack Lonovan, who, wishing to marry Helen Brooks, destroys the only living witness to his secret marriage with half-witted Nance West.