"No, Aunt Ann; I have learned that nothing exists on earth except to produce ultimate good. The vilest crime, indirectly, is productive of good. I confidently expect to see the day that you will simply rise one step higher in your remarkable life and learn to love your enemies. Then you'll be understood by them all as I understand you, for they will then look into your heart, your real heart, as I've looked into it ever since you took pity on the friendless, barefoot boy that I was and lifted me out of my degradation and breathed the breath of hope into my despondent body. And when that day comes—mark it as my prediction—you will slay the ill-will of your enemies with a glance from your eye, and they will fall conquered at your feet."
"Huh!" Ann muttered, "you say that because you are just looking at the surface of things. You see, I know a lots that you don't. Things have gone on here and are still going on that nothing earthly could stop."
"That's it, Aunt Ann," Luke King said, seriously—"it won't be anything earthly. It will be heavenly, and when the bolt falls you will acknowledge I am right. Now, I must go. It will be about dark when I get to my step-father's."
Ann walked with him to the gate, and as she closed it after him she held out her hand. It was quivering. "You are a good boy, Luke," she said, "but you don't know one hundredth part of what they've said and done since you left. I never wrote you."
"I don't care what they've done or said out of their shallow heads and cramped lives," King laughed—"they won't be able to affect your greater existence. You'll slay it all, Aunt Ann, with forgiveness—yes, and pity. You'll see the day you'll pity them rather than hate them."
"I don't believe it, Luke," Ann said, her lips set firmly, and she turned back into the house. Standing in the doorway, she watched him trudge along the road, carrying his valise easily in his hand and swinging it lightly to and fro.
"What a funny idea!" she mused. "Me forgive Jane Hemingway! The boy talks that way because he's young and full of dreams, and don't know any better. If he was going through what I am he'd hate the whole world and every living thing in it."
She saw him pause, turn, and put his valise down on the side of the road. He was coming back, and she went to meet him at the gate. He came up with a smile.
"The thought's just struck me," he said, "that you'd be the best adviser in the world as to what I ought to invest my ten thousand in. You never have made a mistake in money matters that I ever heard of, Aunt Ann; but maybe you'd rather not talk about my affairs."
"I don't know why," she said, as she leaned over the gate. "I'll bet that money of yours will worry me some, for young folks these days have no caution in such matters. Ten thousand dollars—why, that is exactly the price—" She paused, her face full of sudden excitement.