and both her brother and her lover evinced characteristic interest in the planning.
Said Harry: “Sis, I’ll cable to Paris today. They can easily hurry the thing along.”
Helen was delighted; she handed over a telegram just received from John Taylor. “Send me, express, two bales best cotton you can get.”
The Colonel read the message. “I don’t see the connection between this and hurrying up a wedding-gown,” he growled. None of them discerned the handwriting of Destiny.
“Neither do I,” said Harry, who detected yielding in his father’s tone. “But we’d better send him the two prize bales; it will be a fine advertisement of our plantation, and evidently he has a surprise in store for us.”
The Colonel affected to hesitate, but next morning the Silver Fleece went to town.
Zora watched it go, and her heart swelled and died within her. She walked to town, to the station. She did not see Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool arriving from New Orleans; but Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool saw her, and looked curiously at the tall, tragic figure that leaned so dolorously beside the freight car.
The bales were loaded into the express car; the train pulled away, its hoarse snorting waking vague echoes in the forest beyond. But to the girl who stood at the End, looking outward to darkness, those echoes roared like the crack of doom.
A passing band of contract hands called to her mockingly, and one black giant, laughing loudly, gripped her hand.