The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan
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CHAPTER XII
AT THE DAWN OF DAY
It was three o'clock before Marion regained consciousness, crawled to hermother, and crouched in dumb convulsions in her arms.
"What can we do, my darling?" the mother asked at last.
"Die--thank God, we have the strength left!"
"Yes, my love," was the faint answer.
"No one must ever know. We will hide quickly every trace of crime. Theywill think we strolled to Lover's Leap and fell over the cliff, and myname will always be sweet and clean--you understand--come, we musthurry----"
With swift hands, her blue eyes shining with a strange light, the girlremoved the shreds of torn clothes, bathed, and put on the dress ofspotless white she wore the night Ben Cameron kissed her and called her aheroine.
The mother cleaned and swept the room, piled the torn clothes and cord inthe fireplace and burned them, dressed herself as if for a walk, softlyclosed the doors, and hurried with her daughter along the old pathwaythrough the moonlit woods.
At the edge of the forest she stopped and looked back tenderly at thelittle home shining amid the roses, caught their faint perfume andfaltered:
"Let's go back a minute--I want to see his room, and kiss Henry's pictureagain."
"No, we are going to him now--I hear him calling us in the mists above thecliff," said the girl--"come, we must hurry. We might go mad and fail!"
Down the dim cathedral aisles of the woods, hallowed by tender memories,through which the poet lover and father had taught them to walk withreverent feet and without fear, they fled to the old meeting-place ofLove.
On the brink of the precipice, the mother trembled, paused, drew back, andgasped:
"Are you not afraid, my dear?"
"No; death is sweet now," said the girl. "I fear only the pity of those welove."
"Is there no other way? We might go among strangers," pleaded the mother.
"We could not escape ourselves! The thought of life is torture. Only thosewho hate me could wish that I live. The grave will be soft and cool, thelight of day a burning shame."
"Come back to the seat a moment--let me tell you my love again," urged themother. "Life still is dear while I hold your hand."
As they sat in brooding anguish, floating up from the river valley camethe music of a banjo in a negro cabin, mingled with vulgar shout and songand dance. A verse of the ribald senseless lay of the player echoed abovethe banjo's pert refrain:
"Chicken in de bread tray, pickin' up dough; Granny, will your dog bite? No, chile, no!"
The mother shivered and drew Marion closer.
"Oh, dear! oh, dear! has it come to this--all my hopes of your beautifullife!"
The girl lifted her head and kissed the quivering lips.
"With what loving wonder we saw you grow," she sighed, "from a totteringbabe on to the hour we watched the mystic light of maidenhood dawn in yourblue eyes--and all to end in this hideous, leprous shame. No--No! I willnot have it! It's only a horrible dream! God is not dead!"
The young mother sank to her knees and buried her face in Marion's lap ina hopeless paroxysm of grief.
The girl bent, kissed the curling hair, and smoothed it with her softhand.
A sparrow chirped in the tree above, a wren twittered in a bush, and downon the river's bank a mocking-bird softly waked his mate with a note ofthrilling sweetness. "The morning is coming, dearest; we must go," saidMarion. "This shame I can never forget, nor will the world forget. Deathis the only way."
They walked to the brink, and the mother's arms stole round the girl.
"Oh, my baby, my beautiful darling, life of my life, heart of my heart,soul of my soul!"
They stood for a moment, as if listening to the music of the falls,looking out over the valley faintly outlining itself in the dawn. Thefirst far-away streaks of blue light on the mountain ranges, definingdistance, slowly appeared. A fresh motionless day brooded over the worldas the amorous stir of the spirit of morning rose from the moist earth ofthe fields below.
A bright star still shone in the sky, and the face of the mother gazed onit intently. Did the Woman-spirit, the burning focus of the fiercestdesire to live and will, catch in this supreme moment the star's Divinespeech before which all human passions sink into silence? Perhaps, for shesmiled. The daughter answered with a smile; and then, hand in hand, theystepped from the cliff into the mists and on through the opal gates ofdeath.
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Book IV--The Ku Klux Klan