# The Traitor (Dixon, 1907)/Book 3/Chapter 6

STELLA had hurried to the jail with a bouquet of flowers earlier than usual, accompanied by Maggie who carried a dainty breakfast. She wished to be the first to tell John Graham of the blow which had fallen on his people. She had forgotten that the jail in which he lay had been jammed with prisoners during the night. Four of his friends were crowded into the cell in which he was confined.
Her heart sank at the sight of the pitiful crowds of weeping women who stood at the jail door, some of them with sick babies in their arms.
A little tow-headed boy sat on the steps, with his lips quivering and the big tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. She recognised him as the one she saw in front of her house the night of the Klan's first parade.
She bent over him and took his hand:
"What's the matter?"
The boy's breast heaved and he choked, unable to answer, bent his sunburnt head on Stella's hand and burst into strangling tears.
​She stroked his hair, and at length he sobbed:
"They've got my big brother in here—locked—up—in—a—cage! They're going to kill him, and he ain't got nobody but me to help him. I ain't nothing but a little boy. I can't get no money, and I can't do nothing. Oh, me! oh, me!"
He bowed again and sobbed as though his heart would break.
Stella slipped her arm around his neck and placed a rose in his hand.
"Hush dear, I'll be your friend and his. I've got money. I'll help you—give the rose to your brother and come to see me."
"Will you, Miss?" he cried, leaping up with joy. "Make 'em let me go in with you and I'll tell him!"
Stella took him by the hand and led him into the jail.
When the jailor frowned at the boy, she said with a smile:
"He's a little friend of mine. He'll go in with me."
The boy nestled close to her side and gripped her hand tightly. When they reached the first corridor, he sprang to a grated door and seized his brother's hand. As she passed on Stella heard him say joyously:
"It'll be all right, Jim, don't worry. She's a ​goin' to help us. She told me so. She's rich—she'll get us a lawyer."
Stella climbed the stairs to John's door with a great voiceless fear in her soul. The thought of his discovery of her betrayal stopped the very beat of her heart.
To her surprise she found him strangely calm.
"It's sweet of you to come so early," he said with a smile.
"Love makes one's feet swift, doesn't it?" she answered softly.
"And beautiful!" he cried. "I'm going to make you happier by giving you more work. Don't bring me anything more to eat or any more flowers until you've made the other fellows comfortable. I'm all right, but a lot of the poor boys who have just come have broken down. Oh, God, if I could have gotten my hands on the throat of the traitor last night!"
Never had she seen a more terrible look on a human face. Stella gazed at his convulsed features fascinated with fear.
"You'll help the boys, won't you, dear, for my sake?" he asked suddenly. "Susie Wilson and her mother will join you."
Stella answered with a start:
"Why—of course, John. I'll go at once."
"And dear!" he called as she turned quickly. ​"The lawyer whom you engage for me must take all their cases. I'll stand or fall with my people."
"Yes, I understand."
Stella hurried home with her soul in a tumult of conflicting purposes. She felt it yet too dangerous to confess the dual role she had played; yet with each hour's startling events the agony of fear lest he discover her betrayal became more and more intense.
One thing she could do at once. She would make the cause of his men her own, she would make her ministry of love so tender and unselfish, her sacrifices so generous he must hear her plea when the awful moment of her confession should come.
She had just given Aunt Julie Ann orders to prepare three meals each day for every man in jail with John, and was about to start for the garden to cut more flowers, when Maggie ushered Susie Wilson into the hall.
"I'm so glad you've come," Stella cried. "I was just going to ask you and your mother to help us make those men comfortable who have been put in jail. Mr. Graham was sure you would join me."
Susie stared at Stella for a moment and slowly said:
​"Is it possible!"
"Why, what's the matter?" Stella asked. "Won't you sit down?"
"I prefer to stand, thank you, and to come straight to the point," Susie answered with quiet a emphasis. "May I ask you some questions?"
Stella flushed and her first impulse was to show her questioner to the door, but she felt the dangerous menace in Susie's tone and knew that she had suspected at least part of the truth. It was necessary to fence.
"Why, as many as you like," she replied with a light laugh.
"You have told John Graham that you love him?"
"Your question is an impertinence. It's none of your business."
"I have made it my business."
"Then the sooner you recover your self-respect the better," Stella sneered.
"What do you mean?" Susie's gray eyes danced with anger.
"That you are desperately and hopelessly in love with John Graham yourself, and that you haven't pride and character enough to hold up your head before his indifference, and his patronising contempt. I have won him, and you come with cheap insults for the woman he loves."
​Susie's eyes grew dim.
"Your accusation is infamously false," she cried with choking emotion.
"You deny that you love him?" Stella flashed.
"I glory in it—if you will know!" Susie cried in dreamy tenderness. "I've always loved him with a girl's blind worship of the hero of her dreams. And I shall cherish every gentle word that he has ever spoken to me. The impulse which brought me here wasn't the vulgar desire to insult the woman he loves. I came to save his life."
Stella sprang to her feet, her face scarlet, her breath coming in quick gasps of anger.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll tell you if you answer my questions. Do you dare tell me that you love him?"
Stella drew herself up proudly.
"You have no right to ask that question. But I answer it. I do love him and I have told him."
Susie confronted her with flashing eyes.
"Then you have deceived him!"
"How dare you thus insult me in my house," Stella cried with flaming cheeks.
"I'll leave your house and never enter it again. You can also rest assured that John Graham's foot will never again cross this threshold when I have told him the truth."
​"When—you—have—told—him—the—truth!" Stella gasped. "What truth?"
"That you have betrayed him and his people to his enemies."
"It's false! It's false!" Stella panted. "You lie. You lie, because you hate me! You hate me because you love him. Tell him if you dare. He will laugh in your face! Try it—try it—I dare you!" Her voice rose and fell, quivering and breaking in hoarse whispers of passion.
Susie stood quietly and coldly staring at her with lips upturned in scorn.
"If he doubts my word, Mr. Ackerman's will be sufficient."
"Ackerman!" Stella moaned, staggering to the table.
"Mr. Ackerman of the Secret Service who came here in answer to your call."
"He—has—told—you?"
"Yes, and I know the whole black hideous truth. I know that you hate John Graham, that you have used your devil's beauty to entrap and betray him."
"I swear that I love him!" Stella groaned as she sank to a chair.
"As you've sworn to him no doubt while you lured him to his ruin. I hate you—I hate you—and I could strangle you!"
​The tall lithe form trembling with fury towered above Stella's shivering little figure.
"Susie, you are mistaken," she faltered. "Come into the library a moment and I'll convince you that you are wrong."
She seized Susie's hand and led her into the library, sinking again into a chair.
"See, here is a mortgage for ten thousand dollars on this house which I've prepared to raise the money for two great lawyers from the North who are coming to defend him."
"From the North?"
"Yes."
"You mean to convict him," Susie cried. "Another shrewd trick you are playing. Your lawyers will gain his confidence, learn his secrets, betray and send him to his death. But, I'll warn him!"
"Susie, you can't believe this of me! The pledging of this house is the first great act of self-sacrifice of my life. The joy of it has been a sweet revelation to me. You must hear me when I tell you that I love him with passionate devotion. I'd give my life for him if I could!"
"And yet you brought Ackerman here and hounded him for three months until at last he lies in a filthy jail with the shadow of death over him—and you call this love?"
​The tall form again towered in rage above the shrinking figure.
"Wait! I must tell you all, Susie. You know but half the truth. Listen dear, I did try to avenge my father's death. I believed John Graham guilty. I did lure him on to love me only to find that I loved him! I tried to hate him and couldn't. I've betrayed only his name to Ackerman. I could tear my tongue out for it. If he learns of it, he will turn from me and hate me! Susie darling, I've been proud and vain and wilful. Now I'm a poor little girl alone, friendless and lost. You're stronger than I am. Have pity on me. Be a mother to me—I'm lonely and heart-sick. You know what it is to love. If he turns from me now before I can atone for the wrong I have done him, I can't live. You—believe—me—now—dear?"
Susie's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes, I believe you now."
Stella's head sank on the table and her form shook with sobs.
Susie gently stroked the curling black hair, and said:
"I'll help you. We'll work together to save his life."
In a moment they were sobbing in each other's arms.