“Yes I know,” she answered, lifting her hand in warning, “you love me that way--I don’t say it displeases me--I have a soul and I have a body too. There’s something big, fierce, and strong in you, Steve, that always drew me--that draws me to you to-night--but I want to know if your love goes deeper than the body; if it’s big enough, true enough to dare anything in this world or the next for the woman you love?”
“Yes!” he whispered, crushing her hand in his.
“Suppose I should put you to a test and you should fail?”
“With your eyes calling me I’d dare the terrors of hell!”
She took both his hands, fixed her eyes on his until their warm brown light enfolded him with tenderness:
“Give me the name of the Chief of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina,” she whispered.
Steve’s face went white, and he stammered:
“Why--why--my dear--how--can--I? I don’t know him. It’s impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible to the man who loves me if I desire it,” she answered, firmly holding Steve with her eyes dilated to extraordinary size under the tension of her deep emotion.
He turned from her gaze, the cold sweat breaking out on his forehead.
“But, Stella, my dear, I’m not a member of the Klan.”
She dropped his hand, sprang to her feet, and looked at him a moment.
“I swear I’m telling you the truth,” he cried, eagerly attempting to regain her hand.
She turned from him with contempt. She saw too late that she had overplayed the part. She had been too eager, too sure. He was a greater coward than she had suspected.
“But why should you ask such a thing of me?” he stammered.
“Coward!” she hissed, turning suddenly. “You know that I wish to hang this man for the murder of my father.”
“If the Government of the United States with its army and navy and its millions cannot find him--am I a coward because I tell you that I do not know his name?”
“I know that you are a member of the Klan.”
“Upon my soul and honour I swear that I am not!”
“I won’t quarrel with you, dear; you are overwrought and crushed by this tragedy. You don’t mean what you say.”
“Then you’ll live to regret it,” he answered, recovering his composure. “I’ll do anything within human reason. You must not ask the impossible.”
“Then you will help me to find this man?”