“Listen!” he commanded.  “My father has worked hard all his life, and he’s right old now, Ardea.  If I should fail him—­but I’m not going to.  Please send Aunt ’Phrony.”

“I’m going to call your mother,” she said firmly.

“If you do, you’ll regret it the longest day you live.”

“Then let me take the papers down to Mr. Norman for you.”

He considered the alternative for a moment—­only a moment.  What an exquisite revenge it would be to make her the messenger!  But he found he did not hate her so bitterly as he had been trying to since that soul-torturing evening on the cliff’s edge.

“No, I can’t quite do that,” he objected; and again he besought her to send the old negro housekeeper.

She consented finally, and as she was leaving him, she said: 

“I hope your mother is still asleep.  She was here with you all night, and Mr. Norman and I made her go to bed at daybreak.  If you must go, get out of the house as quietly as you can, and I’ll have Pete and the buggy waiting for you at the gate.”

“God bless you!” said Tom fervently; and then he set his teeth hard and did that which came next.

The Dabney buggy was waiting for him when, after what seemed like a pilgrimage of endless miles, he had crept down to the gate.  But it was Miss Dabney, and not Mammy Juliet’s Pete, who was holding the reins.

“I couldn’t find Pete, and Japheth has gone to town,” she explained.  “Can you get in by yourself?”

He was holding on by the cut wheel, and the death-look was creeping over his face again.

“I can’t let you,” he panted; and she thought he was thinking of the disgrace for her.

“I am my own mistress,” she said coldly.  “If I choose to drive you when you are too sick to hold the reins, it is my own affair.”

He shook his head impatiently.

“I wasn’t thinking of that; but you must first know just what you’re doing.  My father stands to lose all he has got to—­to the Farley’s.  That’s what the meeting is for.  Do you understand?”

She bit her lip and a far-away look came into her eyes.  Then she turned on him with a little frown of determination gathering between her straight eyebrows—­a frown that reminded him of the Major in his militant moods.

“I must take your word for it,” she said, and the words seemed to cut the air like edged things.  “Tell me the truth:  is your cause entirely just?  Your motive is not revenge?”

“As God is my witness,” he said solemnly.  “It is my father’s cause, and none of mine; more than that, it is your grandfather’s cause—­and yours.”

She pushed the buggy hood back with a quick arm sweep and gave him her free hand.  “Step carefully,” she cautioned; and a minute later they were speeding swiftly down the pike in a white dust cloud of their own making.

* * * * *

There was a sharp crisis to the fore in the old log-house office at the furnace.  Caleb Gordon, haggard and tremulous, sat at one end of the trestle-board which served as a table, with Norman at his elbow; and flanking him on either side were the two Farleys, Dyckman, Trewhitt, acting general counsel for the company in the Farley interest, and Hanchett, representing the Gordons.