draw and attend no more of its meetings. He
understood the language of the searching look Mr. Dinsmore gave him and
seized the first opportunity for a word in private, to vindicate
himself.

"Uncle," he said with frank sincerity, "I am not free to tell you
everything, as I could wish, but I hope you will believe me when I
assure you that I never had any share in the violent doings of the Ku
Klux, and never will."

Mr. Dinsmore bent upon him a second look of keen scrutiny. Conly bore it
without flinching; and extending his hand, his uncle replied, "I think I
understand the situation: but I will trust you, Cal, and not fear that
in entertaining you here I am harboring a hypocrite and spy who may
betray my family and myself into the hands of midnight assassins."

"Thanks, uncle, you shall never have cause to repent of your
confidence," the lad answered with a flush of honest pride.

He returned to Roselands the next day, and went directly to an upper
room, at some distance from those usually occupied by the family, from
whence came the busy hum of a sewing machine.

The door was securely fastened on the inner side, but opened immediately
in response to three quick, sharp taps of a pencil which Calhoun took
from his pocket.

It was his mother's face that looked cautiously out upon him. "Oh, you
have returned," she said in an undertone; "well, come in. I'm glad to
see you."

He stepped in, and she locked the door again, and sitting down, resumed
the work, which it seemed had been laid aside to admit him. She was
making odd looking rolls of cotton cloth; stuffing them with cotton
wool.

Mrs. Johnson, the only other person present, was seated before the
sewing machine, stitching a seam in a long garment of coarse, white
linen.

"How d'ye do, Cal?" she said, looking up for an instant to give him a
nod.

He returned the greeting, and taking a chair by Mrs. Conly's side, "All
well, mother?" he asked.

"Quite. You're just in time to tell me whether these are going to look
right. You know we've never seen any, and have only your description to
go by."

She held up a completed roll. It looked like a horn, tapering nearly to
a point.

"I think so," he said; "but, mother, you needn't finish mine: I shall
never use it."

"Calhoun Conly, what do you mean?" she cried, dropping the roll into her
lap, and gazing at him with kindling eyes.

"You're not going to back out of it now?" exclaimed Enna, leaving her
machine,