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Bles came to the cabin, and he and Zora and Elspeth sat silently around the fire-place with its meagre embers. The night was balmy and still; only occasionally a wandering breeze searching the hidden places of the swamp, or the call and song of night birds, jarred the stillness. Long they sat, until the silence crept into Bles's flesh, and stretching out his hand, he touched Zora's, clasping it.
In the hall he struggled over two telegrams which had caused him most complicated thought during his drive. The problem was to ease Zora's mind and to obtain a change of raiment without disclosing the whereabouts of either Emmy or himself.
At any rate, he was free to bring her his daily tale of worship, to glean a look of kindness from her clear eyes. This was his happiness. For her sake he would sacrifice it. For Zora's sake he would marry Emmy. The heart of Septimus was that of a Knight-Errant confident in the righteousness of his quest. The certainty had come all at once in the flash of inspiration.
Slowly Zora's hands fell and her eyes blinked as though waking from some awful dream. She staggered toward the woman's outstretched arms.... Late that night the girl lay close in Miss Smith's motherly embrace. "I was going to hell!" she whispered, trembling. "Why, Zora?" asked Miss Smith calmly. "I couldn't find the Way and I wanted to forget."
Sypher leaned back in his chair, and as the illustrated paper prevented him from seeing Zora's face, he looked reflectively at the fire. "I've always told you that I am superstitious. Septimus seems to be gifted with an unconscious sense of right in an infinitely higher degree than any man I have ever known. His dealings with Emmy showed it. His sending for you to help me showed it.
Its silken fibres, cramped and close, shone yellow-white in the sunlight; sadly soiled, yet beautiful. Many came to see Zora's twin bales, as they lay, handling them and questioning, while Colonel Cresswell grew proud of his possession. The world was going well with the Colonel.
She had been in the rooms ten minutes, and she had lost twenty louis. Her last coup had been successful, but a bland old lady, with the white hair and waxen face of sainted motherhood, had swept up her winnings so unconcernedly that Zora's brain began to swim. As she felt too strange and shy to expostulate she stood fingering her empty purse.
"And now for the seed!" he interrupted joyously. "And then the Silver Fleece!" That night, for the first time, Bles entered Zora's home. It was a single low, black room, smoke-shadowed and dirty, with two dingy beds and a gaping fire-place.
What a field of cotton! what a marvellous field! But how had it been saved? He skirted the island slowly, stopping near Zora's oak. Here lay the reading of the riddle: with infinite work and pain, some one had dug a canal from the lagoon to the creek, into which the former had drained by a long and crooked way, thus allowing it to empty directly.
Emmy knew her words were vain and dangerous, but the attitude of her sister, calm and confident, assuming her air of gracious patronage, irritated her beyond endurance. Zora's smile deepened into indulgent laughter. "My dearest Emmy, you don't mean to say that it's jealousy of me? But it's too ridiculous. Do you suppose I've ever thought of Septimus in that way?"
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