"What's it all about?
What did he mean?
If you don't tell me I'll go crazy!"
Scarlett laid hands on Melanie and shook her violently as if by force she could shake an answer from her.
"Mean?
It means you've probably been the cause of Ashley's and Mr. Kennedy's death!"
In spite of the agony of fear there was a note of triumph in India's voice.
"Stop shaking Melly.
She's going to faint."
"No, I'm not," whispered Melanie, clutching the back of a chair.
"My God, my God!
I don't understand!
Kill Ashley?
Please, somebody tell me--"
Archie's voice, like a rusty hinge, cut through Scarlett's words.
"Set down," he ordered briefly.
"Pick up yore sewin'.
Sew like nothin' had happened.
For all we know, the Yankees might have been spyin' on this house since sundown.
Set down, I say, and sew."
Trembling they obeyed, even Pitty picking up a sock and holding it in shaking fingers while her eyes, wide as a frightened child's went around the circle for an explanation.
"Where is Ashley?
What has happened to him, Melly?" cried Scarlett.
"Where's your husband?
Aren't you interested in him?"
India's pale eyes blazed with insane malice as she crumpled and straightened the torn towel she had been mending.
"India, please!"
Melanie had mastered her voice but her white, shaken face and tortured eyes showed the strain under which she was laboring.
"Scarlett, perhaps we should have told you but--but--you had been through so much this afternoon that we--that Frank didn't think--and you were always so outspoken against the Klan--"
"The Klan--" At first, Scarlett spoke the word as if she had never heard it before and had no comprehension of its meaning and then: "The Klan!" she almost screamed it.
"Ashley isn't in the Klan!
Frank can't be!
Oh, he promised me!"
"Of course, Mr. Kennedy is in the Klan and Ashley, too, and all the men we know," cried India.
"They are men, aren't they?
And white men and Southerners.
You should have been proud of him instead of making him sneak out as though it were something shameful and--"
"You all have known all along and I didn't--"
"We were afraid it would upset you," said Melanie sorrowfully.
"Then that's where they go when they're supposed to be at the political meetings?
Oh, he promised me!
Now, the Yankees will come and take my mills and the store and put him in jail--oh, what did Rhett Butler mean?"
India's eyes met Melanie's in wild fear.
Scarlett rose, flinging her sewing down.
"If you don't tell me, I'm going downtown and find out.
I'll ask everybody I see until I find--"
"Set," said Archie, fixing her with his eye. "I'll tell you.
Because you went gallivantin' this afternoon and got yoreself into trouble through yore own fault, Mr. Wilkes and Mr. Kennedy and the other men are out tonight to kill that thar nigger and that thar white man, if they can catch them, and wipe out that whole Shantytown settlement.
And if what that Scallawag said is true, the Yankees suspected sumpin' or got wind somehow and they've sont out troops to lay for them.
And our men have walked into a trap.