"Yes, you know as well as I do," Ann went on, gently. "He come over here the other night after he left your house. He hitched his horse at the gate and come in and sat down. I saw something serious had happened, and as he was not due here, and was overwhelmed with business in Atlanta, I thought he had met with money trouble. I made up my mind then and there, too, that I'd back him to the extent of every thimbleful of land and every splinter of timber in my possession; but it wasn't money he wanted. It was something else. He sat there in the moonlight that was shining through the door, with his head on his breast plumb full of despair. I finally got it out of him. You'd refused him outright. You'd decided that you could get on without the love and life-devotion of the grandest man that ever lived. I was thoroughly mad at you then. I come in an inch of turning plumb against you, but I didn't. I fought for you as I'd have fought for myself away back in my girlhood. I did it, although I could have spanked you good for making him so miserable."
"You know why I refused him," Virginia said, in a low voice. "You, of all persons, will know that."
"I don't know as I do," Ann said, with a probing expression in her eyes. "I don't know, unless, after all, you have a leaning for that young scamp, who has no more real honor than a convict in his stripes. Women are that way, except in very rare cases. The bigger the scoundrel and the meaner he treats them the more they want him. If it's that, I am not going to upbraid you. Upbraiding folks for obeying the laws of nature is the greatest loss of wind possible. If you really love that scamp, no power under high heaven will turn you."
"Love him? I loathe him!" burst passionately from Virginia's lips.
"Then what under the sun made you treat Luke King as you did?" asked Ann, almost sternly.
"Because I could not marry him," said the girl, firmly. "I'd rather die than accept the love and devotion of a man as noble as he is after—after—oh, you know what I mean!"
"Oh, I see—I see," Ann said, her brows meeting. "There comes another law of nature. I reckon if you feel that way, any argument I'd put up would fall on deaf ears."
"I could never accept his love and confidence without telling him all that took place that night, and I'd kill myself rather than have him know," declared the girl.
"Oh, that's the trouble!" Ann exclaimed. "Well, I hope all that will wear away in time. It's fortunate that you are not loved by a narrow fool, my child. Luke King has seen a lots of the world in his young life."
"He has not seen enough of the world to make him overlook a thing of that kind, and you know it," Virginia sighed. "I really believe the higher a man becomes spiritually the higher his ideal of a woman is. I know what he thinks of me now, but I don't know what he would think if he knew the whole truth. He must never be told that, Mrs. Boyd. God knows I am grateful to you for all you have done, but you must not tell him that."