Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/251

 of the great trees through which they had been passing for more than a mile and shot at him a sudden look of fear.

"Let's turn back," she said, flushing and reining her horse to a stand.

A look of pain clouded his face as he bent near.

"Surely, dearest, you can trust the man who worships you! Come, we are only a few hundred yards from the gate."

"Then I'll trust you that much further," she said with a light laugh, spurring her horse forward.

In a few minutes they passed through the ruined gate in the edge of the woods. The broken marble figures which once crowned the brick pillars lay beside the entrance among a mass of tangled blackberry briars. They had been pried from their places and hurled there by the bayonets of Sherman's men and had not been touched since.

The lawn, which once had spread its beautiful carpet of flowers and shrubbery in wide acres here in the heart of the ancient woods, had grown up in ugly broom straw and young pines, which were slowly strangling to death the more delicate forms of life. The dark fir trees, magnolia and holly, still flourished in luxury.

Towering in solemn, serried line on a gentle eminence still stood the six great white Corinthian pillars of the front façade of the house. Behind