"I don't care if his whole layout is up in arms agin me; he sha'n't rob you. You are the sweetest, dearest, most suffering little girl the sun ever shone on, and I'll fight for you as long as there is a speck of life in me. You go home. I'll come to you the very minute it is settled."
"And you won't—oh, Alfred, please don't—please don't—for my sake, don't have trouble with him. You're hot-tempered, and I've let you get wrought up. Don't you see that it don't make any odds to me?"
"All right, then," he said, smiling, and yet she saw that his smile was only on the surface. "I promise we won't fight about it. I'll try to bring him to his senses in some other way. Now, go home. I'll come out as soon as I possibly can."
It was after nightfall before he saw her again. As he was nearing her cottage in the vague starlight he saw a figure of some one in the fence-corner of her pasture which touched the road near his own land. He surmised that it was she, and that she was there waiting for him, though her head was bowed to the top rail of the fence and he couldn't see her face. There was a strip of grass on the roadside, and he walked upon it that it might deaden his tread till he was close upon her. As it was, he reached her side without attracting her attention. Then something clutched all his senses and held him like a dead thing in his tracks, for he heard her praying in a sweet, suffering voice that lifted him with it to the very throne of thrones.
"Oh, God, my Maker, my Saviour, my Redeemer," he heard her saying, "give me the strength to bear it and let no harm come to my dear, dear friend. I can bear the loss of my home, but not to have harm come to him. Oh, Lord, help—" She raised her head, and their eyes met and clung together. He had a folded paper in his hand, and he extended it to her. His voice rose and broke in a wave of huskiness: "Here is the deed, Dixie, little girl," he said. "The farm is yours. The transaction is recorded at the court-house. Nothing can take it from you now."
"Mine, Alfred, mine, did you say?"
"Yes, I had trouble; he died hard; he saw it was all up with him after he'd signed that agreement, but it was like pulling eye-teeth to get the deed made out. He'd write a line, and then throw down the pen and cry and whine like a baby. I'm ashamed to say it, but once I got mad and caught him by that slim neck of his and pushed him down under his desk and held him there. My thumb was in his throat. I clutched too tight. I thought I'd killed him. The Lord must have restrained me. He was black in the face and as limber as a rag. It was then that he give in. He'd have held out to the end, but I was holding something over him. Women all over the county are lending him money at a low rate, and I showed him that if this trick of his agin you was published they'd lose faith in him and make him pay up. He saw his danger and give in. But, my! how it rankles. It's the first time he was ever whipped to a dead finish."
With the deed in her hand Dixie stood staring at him, her beautiful mouth twitching with emotion, her great eyes aglow with joy. She started to speak, but a sob rose within her and she lowered her head to the rail. The beams of the rising moon fell on her exquisite neck; her wonderful tresses lay massed on her shoulders.
"Don't—don't cry, Dixie," he said. "I can't bear it." He laid his hand on her head and let it rest there gently.
Presently she looked up, caught his hand in both of hers and pressed her lips to it. "You are the sweetest, best, noblest man in the world, Alfred. I can't thank you. I'll—I'll choke. I'm so—so happy. Good-night."