"As though it had never existed."
"Then your authority is at an end?"
"As an officer of the Klan, yes. As a leader of men, no."
"The officer only interests me—Boys!" Steve's angry voice rang with defiance.
The men gathered closer.
"The Invisible Empire is no more. Its officers are as dead as the ashes of its ritual. Meet me here to-morrow night at eleven o'clock to organise a new order of patriots! Will you come?"
"Yes!"
"You bet your life!"
The answers seemed to leap from every throat at the same moment.
John Graham's face went white for a moment and his fist closed.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, Steve Hoyle," he said with slow emphasis.
"And traitors pose as moral leaders," was the retort.
"Time will show which of us is a traitor. Will you dare thus to defy me and reorganise this Klan?"
"Wait and see!"
John Graham stepped close to his rival, and, in a low voice unheard save by the man to whom he spoke, said:
