, of all kinds of power. In that moment she was like a
seed flying in the storm above the mountain spruces whither, she knew
not, cared not. There was one thought that drifted across the chaos like
a blue light of the spirit: Could she control the storm? Could she say
whither the winds might blow, where the seed might be planted? Then
she found herself listening, struggling no longer, for he held her
powerless. Strangest of all, most hopeful of all, his own mind was
working, though his soul rocked with passion.

"Cynthy--ever since we stopped that day on the road in Northcutt's
woods, I've thought of nothin' but to marry you--m-marry you. Then you
give me that book--I hain't had much education, but it come across me
if you was to help me that way--And when I seed you with Worthington, I
could have killed him easy as breakin' bark."

"Hush, Jethro."

She struggled free and leaped away from him, panting, while he tore open
his coat and drew forth something which gleamed in the lantern's rays--a
silver locket. Cynthia scarcely saw it. Her blood was throbbing in her
temples, she could not reason, but she knew that the appeal for the sake
of which she had stooped must be delivered now.

"Jethro," she said, "do you know why I came here--why I came to you?"

"No," he said. "No. W--wanted me, didn't you? Wanted me--I wanted you,
Cynthy."

"I would never have come to you for that," she cried, "never!"

"L-love me, Cynthy--love me, don't you?"

How could he ask, seeing that she had been in his arms, and had not
fled? And yet she must go through with what she had come to do, at any
cost.

"Jethro, I have come to speak to you about the town meeting tomorrow."

He halted as though he had been struck, his hand tightening over the
locket.

"T-town meetin'?"

"Yes. All this new organization is your doing," she cried. "Do you think
that I am foolish enough to believe that Fletcher Bartlett or Sam Price
planned this thing? No, Jethro. I know who has done it, and I could have
told them if they had asked me."

He looked at her, and the light of a new admiration was in his eye.

"Knowed it--did you?"

"Yes," she answered, a little defiantly, "I did."

"H-how'd you know it--how'd you know it, Cynthy?" How did she know it,
indeed?

"I guessed it," said Cynthia, desperately, "knowing you, I guessed it."

"A-always thought you was smart, Cynthy."

"Tell me, did you do this thing?"

"Th-thought you knowed it--th-thought