And as she stood desperate, at bay, with her nest storm tossed and
threatened, suddenly the impossibility of it all came down upon her,
and stern with a very rigidity of resolve she went into the house,
lighted a candle by the old desk in the hall, and wrote swiftly a few
words of desperate summons to the Senator. She knew that Friday night
always found him over the fields at Boliver, and she told him briefly
the situation and asked him to come over in the early morning to the
rescue--and sacrifice.
When she had first come out on the porch she had seen young Bob ride
up to the store on one of his colts, and she ran fleetly down to the
front gate and called to him. He consented instantly to ride over and
deliver the note for her, but he shot an uneasy glance at her from
beneath his wide hat as he put the letter in his pocket.
"Is anything wrong, Miss Rose Mary?" he asked anxiously but
respectfully.
"No, Bob, dear, nothing that--that I can't make--right," she answered
in a soft, tearless voice, and as he got on his horse and rode away
she came slowly up the long front walk that was moonflecked from the
leaves of the tall trees. Then once more she stood on the old door
sill--at bay.
And as she looked at the old Ridge across the sweet, blooming
clover-fields, with the darkened house behind her, again the waters of
despair rose breast-high and heart-high, beat against her aching
throat and were just about to dash over her head as she stretched out
one arm to the hills and with a broken cry bent her white forehead in
the curve of the other, but suddenly bent head, tear-blinded eyes,
quivering breast and supplicating arms were folded tight in a strong
embrace and warm, thirsty lips pressed against the tears on her
cheeks as Everett's voice with a choke and a gulp made its way into
her consciousness.
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