Page:The traitor; a story of the fall of the invisible empire (IA traitorstoryoffa00dixo).pdf/29

 He seated himself on a rustic bench in the shadows to await the lapse of the hour he had promised Susie, and pondered more carefully the plan of personal vengeance against Butler which was now rapidly shaping itself in his mind. That he had the power, as chief of the dreaded Ku Klux Klan, to execute it was not to be doubted. The Invisible Empire obeyed his word without a question.

Tender memories of his childhood began to flood his soul. Beneath these trees he had spent the happiest days of life—the charmed life of the old régime. He could see now the stately form of his mother moving among its boxwood walks directing the work of her slaves.

He had not been there before since the day her body was carried from the hall five years ago and laid to rest in the family vault in the far corner of the lawn. Ah, that awful day! Could he ever forget it? The day old Butler brought his deputy marshals and evicted his father and mother from the home they loved as life itself!

The Graham house had always been a show place in the town of Independence. Built in 1840, by John's grandfather, Robert Graham, the eccentric son of Colonel John Graham of Revolutionary fame, it was a curious mixture of Colonial and French architecture. The French