took Sallie's trembling hand in his and promised to love, honour and cherish her as long as life endured. And under his breath he added, "Here and hereafter-forever." And then she looked into his smiling face with her blue eyes full of unspeakable love, and in a voice low and soft as the note of a flute, gave to him her life. And the Preacher said, "What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder!"

She stayed there with him until the gathering twilight.

"Now, I must hurry back to my father and win him. I will not come to you a beggar. My father shall not dis inherit me. I am going to bring you my fortune, too.'

"Oh! curse that fortune, dear! I've feared it was that keeping us apart so long."

"Don't curse it. I like it, and I am going to win it for you. You are a man of genius. Your success is as sure as if it were already won. I will not come to you a helpless pauper. I have never been taught to do anything. I should like to cook for you if I knew how, and I am going to learn how. I am going to make you the most beautiful home that the heart of a woman can dream. I'd rob the world for treasure for it. I am going to rob my dear old father. He has sworn to disinherit me if I marry without his consent. He shall not do it."

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Then, don't be long about it.

You are my treasure. I can build you a snug little nest at Hambright."

"I will only ask four weeks. Now do what I tell you. Sit down and write Papa a letter telling him I am your affianced bride and ask his consent to the celebration of our marriage within three weeks. That will produce an earthquake, and something will surely happen within four weeks."

He wrote the letter, and she looked over his shoulder. "You see, dear," she said as she kissed him good-bye,

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"I love Papa so tenderly. You can't understand how close the tie is between us, perhaps some day in our own home of which I'm dreaming you may understand as you can not now," she added softly.

"Then for your sake, dearest, I hope you can win him. But I'm afraid of this plan of yours.'

'Leave it with me for a month, do just as I tell you, and then I'll obey you all the rest of our lives,—if your orders suit ine," she playfully added.

She returned to Stella Holt's, and Gaston went back to his room and dreamed that night he was sleeping in the Governor's Palace.

W

CHAPTER XIII

A SPEECH THAT MADE HISTORY

HEN General Worth received Gaston's brief and startling letter, the wires were hot between New York and Asheville for hours. His last message was a peremptory command to his daughter to join him immediately at Independence.

When Sallie arrived at Oakwood the General was already there, and the storm broke in all its fury. At every bitter word she only quietly smiled, until the General was on the verge of collapse. Day after day he begged, pleaded, raged and finally took to hard swearing as he looked into her calm happy face.

In the meantime McLeod and his henchman on the judge's bench had seen a new light. The excitement over the arrest of Gaston seemed to have fanned the flames of the Red Shirt movement into a conflagration. He was alarmed at its meaning. The judge heard a rumour that five thousand Red Shirts were mobilising at the foot of the Blue Ridge near Hambright, and that they were going to march across the mountains, into Asheville, demolish the jail, liberate Gaston, and hang the judge who had committed him without bail.

The rumour was a fake, but he was not taking any. chances. He issued an order releasing Gaston on his own recognisance, and left for a vacation.

Gaston returned to Hambright showered with congratulatory telegrams from every quarter of the state.

He received a brief note from Sallie saying the war was on but had not reached its final climax, as the General was now devoting his best energies to the Democratic convention which was to meet in ten days, when he expected to crush any "fool movement of young upstarts!

Gaston knew of his organisation but he was sure the number of delegates pledged to the General's machine was not enough to dominate the body, even if he could hold them in line.

When this convention met at Raleigh, no body of representative men were ever more completely at sea as to the platform or policy upon which they would appeal to the people for the overthrow of an enemy. The coalition that conquered the state and held it with the grip of steel for four years was stronger than ever and was absolutely certain of victory. The enormous patronage of the Federal Government had been in their hands for four years, and with the state, county and municipal officers, a host of powerful leaders had been gathered around McLeod's daring personality. Apparently he was about to fasten the rule of the Negro and his allies on the state for a generation.

When Gaston entered the convention hall he received an ovation, heartfelt and generous, but it did not reach the point of a disturbing element in the calculations of the three or four prominent candidates for Governor. General Worth had drilled his cohorts so thoroughly in opposition to him, that any sort of stampeding was out of the question.

The platform committee was composed of seven leaders, among whom was Gaston. There was a long wrangle over the document, and at length when they reported, a sensation was created. For the first time since their triumph over Simon Legree the committee was divided,

and, refusing to agree, submitted majority and minority reports. The committee stood five for the majority and two for the minority.

Gaston and a daring young politician from the heart of the Black Belt signed the minority report. The majority report as submitted, was merely a rehash of the old platform on which they had been defeated by McLeod twice, with slight additional impeachment of the incapacity and corruption of the State Administration. The delegates from the Black Belt and the counties where the Red Shirts had been holding their noonday parades received it with silence. General Worth's machine cheered it vigourously, and gave a rousing reception to their chosen champion who made the presentation speech.

When Gaston rose to offer and defend his minority report, a sudden hush fell on the sea of eager faces. A few men in the convention had heard him speak. All had heard he was an orator of power, and were anxious to see him. His leadership in the Revolution of Independence and his subsequent arrest and imprisonment had made him a famous man.

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention:" he began with a deliberate clear voice which spoke of greater reserve power than the words he uttered conveyed-" I move to substitute for this document of meaningless platitudes the following resolution on which to make this campaign."

You could have heard a pin fall, as in ringing tones like the call of a bugle to battle he read,

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'Whereas, it is impossible to build a state inside a state of two antagonistic races,

And whereas, the future North Carolinian must therefore be an Anglo-Saxon or a Mulatto,

Resolved, that the hour has now come in our history