was
religious in the strictest, deepest sense, for she was learning to
know God.

Though the girl pursued her way quietly, unwilling that the notoriety
which had been fastened upon her should mark her as an object of
curiosity, yet her story soon spread among University circles, and the
first semester was a scant two weeks old before her name had been
debated in the numerous Sororities and Women's Clubs, and quietly
dropped. Negro blood coursed in her veins; and the stigma of parental
disgrace lay dark upon her. She lived with a woman of blackened
reputation--a reputation which waxed no brighter under the casual,
malicious comments of J. Wilton Ames, whose great financial strength
had made him a Trustee of this institution of learning. If Carmen
divined the comment that was passed concerning herself, she gave no
indication. But Hitt and Father Waite knew that the girl had not found
favor in the social and fraternal organizations of her mates; and they
knew why.

"A curse upon such little minds!" mused Hitt, when he could no longer
restrain himself. Then he called a student to his desk one day, at the
conclusion of his lecture.

"Miss West," he said, "you are leader in the most prominent Sorority
in the University. I want you to give Miss Carmen Ariza a bid."

The girl shook her head. "She is not desirable."

"But the charges against her are unfounded! They are flagrantly
false!" stormed Hitt.

"Have you proof, Professor?" the girl asked, as she arched her brows.

"None definite. But--well, what if she were a negress? Hers is the
most brilliant mind in the entire student-body!"

But, no. Race segregation is a divine tenet, scripturally justified.
What though the girl's skin vied with the lilies and rosebuds? What
though her hair was the brown of ripe fields? Had not God Almighty
decreed that the negro should remain a drawer of water? A hewer of
wood? Had the Lord designed him the equal of the noble white, He would
have bleached his face, and bridged his flat nose. Miss West was a
Southerner. And the reference to her dark-skinned sisters caused a
little _moue_ of disgust, as she flatly declined to consider Carmen an
eligible candidate for membership in her Society.

"Lord above!" ejaculated Hitt, who had been brooding over the incident
as he walked home with Father Waite. "That toadying, sycophantic,
wealth-worshiping Miss West can see no farther than the epidermis! If
we could have maintained Carmen's reputa