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 tongue. Around it was a Latin motto worked in scarlet: "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus"—what always, what everywhere, what by all has been held to be true. "The of the Klan," he said; "the standard of the Grand Dragon."

Elsie seized his hand and kissed it, unable to speak.

"Why so serious to-night?"

"Do you love me very much?" she answered.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay his life at the feet of his beloved," he responded, tenderly.

"Yes, yes; I know—and that is why you are breaking my heart. When first I met you—it seems now ages and ages ago—I was a vain, self-willed, pert little thing"

"It's not so. I took you for an angel—you were one. You are one to-night."

"Now," she went on slowly, "in what I have lived through you I have grown into an impassioned, serious, self-disciplined, bewildered woman. Your perfect trust to-night is the sweetest revelation that can come to a woman's soul and yet it brings to me unspeakable pain"

"For what?"

"You are guilty of murder."

Ben's figure stiffened.

"The judge who pronounces sentence of death on a criminal outlawed by civilised society is not usually called a murderer, my dear."

"And by whose authority are you a judge?"

"By authority of the sovereign people who created the State of South Carolina. The criminals who claim to be