The Darkest Hour 2	The Darkest Hour 3	The Darkest Hour 4

“Sit here by me, then. It’s a queer throne for such a queen; but it’s the best your poor lover can find. He’ll do better for you some of these days, I’m thinking. Now your mind is easy once again, is it not?”

“How can it ever be at ease, Jack, when I know that you are a criminal among criminals, when I never know the day that I may hear you are in court for murder? ‘McMurdo the Scowrer,’ that’s what one of our boarders called you yesterday. It went through my heart like a knife.”

“Sure, hard words break no bones.”

“But they were true.”

“Well, dear, it’s not so bad as you think. We are but poor men that are trying in our own way to get our rights.”

Ettie threw her arms round her lover’s neck. “Give it up, Jack! For my sake, for God’s sake, give it up! It was to ask you that I came here to-day. Oh, Jack, see – I beg it of you on my bended knees! Kneeling here before you I implore you to give it up!”

He raised her and soothed her with her head against his breast.

“Sure, my darlin’, you don’t know what it is you are asking. How could I give it up when it would be to break my oath and to desert my comrades? If you could see how things stand with me you could never ask it of me. Besides, if I wanted to, how could I do it? You don’t suppose that the lodge would let a man go free with all its secrets?”

“I’ve thought of that, Jack. I’ve planned it all. Father has saved some money. He is weary of this place where the fear of these people darkens our lives. He is ready to go. We would fly together to Philadelphia or New York, where we would be safe from them.”

McMurdo laughed. “The lodge has a long arm. Do you think it could not stretch from here to Philadelphia or New York?”

“Well, then, to the West, or to England, or to Germany, where father came from – anywhere to get away from this Valley of Fear!”

McMurdo thought of old Brother Morris. “Sure it is the second time I have heard the valley so named,” said he. “The shadow does indeed seem to lie heavy on some of you.”

“It darkens every moment of our lives. Do you suppose that Ted Baldwin has ever forgiven us? If it were not that he fears you, what do you suppose our chances would be? If you saw the look in those dark, hungry eyes of his when they fall on me!”

“By Gar! I’d teach him better manners if I caught him at it! But see here, little girl. I can’t leave here. I can’t – take that from me once and for all. But if you will leave me to find my own way, I will try to prepare a way of getting honourably out of it.”

“There is no honour in such a matter.”

“Well, well, it’s just how you look at it. But if you’ll give me six months, I’ll work it so that I can leave without being ashamed to look others in the face.”

The girl laughed with joy. “Six months!” she cried. “Is it a promise?”

“Well, it may be seven or eight. But within a year at the furthest we will leave the valley behind us.”

It was the most that Ettie could obtain, and yet it was something. There was this distant light to illuminate the gloom of the immediate future. She returned to her father’s house more light-hearted than she had ever been since Jack McMurdo had come into her life.

The Darkest Hour 2	The Darkest Hour 3	The Darkest Hour 4