"I hope you can
soon find a way to have it back."

"Thank you," replied the mother cheerily. "The longer you stay, the better
for us. You don't know how happy I am over your coming. It has lifted a
load from our hearts. In the liberal rent you pay us you are our
benefactors. We are very grateful and happy."

Elsie watched them walk across the lawn to the street, the daughter
leaning on the mother's arm. She followed slowly and stopped behind one of
the arbor-vitae bushes beside the gate. The full moon had risen as the
twilight fell and flooded the scene with soft white light. A whippoorwill
struck his first plaintive note, his weird song seeming to come from all
directions and yet to be under her feet. She heard the rustle of dresses
returning along the walk, and Marion and her mother stood at the gate.
They looked long and tenderly at the house. Mrs. Lenoir uttered a broken
sob, Marion slipped an arm around her, brushed the short curling hair back
from her forehead, and softly said:

"Mamma, dear, you know it's best. I don't mind. Everybody in town loves
us. Every boy and girl in Piedmont worships you. We will be just as happy
at the hotel."

In the pauses between the strange bird's cry, Elsie caught the sound of
another sob, and then a soothing murmur as of a mother bending over a
cradle, and they were gone.

CHAPTER II

THE EYES OF THE JUNGLE

Elsie stood dreaming for a moment in the shadow of the arbor-vitae,
breathing the sensuous perfumed air and listening to the distant music of
the falls, her heart quivering in pity for the anguish of which she had
been a witness. Again the spectral cry of the whippoorwill rang near-by,
and she noted for the first time the curious cluck with which the bird
punctuated each call. A sense of dim foreboding oppressed her.

She wondered if the chatter of Marion about the girl in Nashville were
only a child's guess or more. She laughed softly at the absurdity of the
idea. Never since she had first looked into Ben Cameron's face did she
feel surer of the honesty and earnestness of his love than to-day in this
quiet home of his native village. It must be the queer call of the bird
which appealed to superstitions she did not know were hidden within her
being.

Still dreaming under its spell, she was startled at the tread of two men
approaching the gate.

The taller, more powerful-looking man put his hand on the latch and
paused.

"Allow no white man to order you ar