Chapter 591

CHAPTER XXXVII

IT WAS on a wild wet night in April that Tony Fontaine rode in from Jonesboro on a lathered horse that was half dead from exhaustion and came knocking at their door, rousing her and Frank from sleep with their hearts in their throats. Then for the second time in four months, Scarlett was made to feel acutely what Reconstruction in an its implications meant, made to understand more completely what was in Will's mind when he said "Our troubles have just begun," to know that the bleak words of Ashley, spoken in the wind-swept orchard of Tara, were true: "This that's facing all of us is worse than war—worse than prison—worse than death."

The first time she had come face to face with Reconstruction was when she teamed that Jonas Wilkerson with the aid of the Yankees could evict ……