ing a man out on bail for a penitentiary offense. I'll write to
them, sir, and thank them for their trust and friendship, and you can
tell them for me, if you will, that I'll come to see them when not
only I, but everybody else, can say that I am fit to go."

"Your feelings do you credit," returned the colonel warmly, "and
however much they would like to see you, I'm sure the ladies will
appreciate your delicacy. As your friend and theirs, you must permit
me to serve you further, whenever the opportunity offers, until this
affair is finished."

Ben thanked the colonel from a full heart, and went back to Mink Run,
where, in the effort to catch up the plantation work, which had
fallen behind in his absence, he sought to forget the prison
atmosphere and lose the prison pallor. The disgrace of having been in
jail was indelible, and the danger was by no means over. The sympathy
of his friends would have been priceless to him, but to remain away
from them would be not only the honourable course to pursue, but a
just punishment for his own folly. For Graciella, after all, was only
a girl--a young girl, and scarcely yet to be judged harshly for her
actions; while he was a man grown, who knew better, and had not acted
according to his lights.

Three days after Ben Dudley's release on bail, Clarendon was treated
to another sensation. Former constable Haines, now employed as an
overseer at Fetters's convict farm, while driving in a buggy to
Clarendon, where he spent his off-duty spells, was shot from ambush
near Mink Run, and his right arm shattered in such a manner as to
require amputation.

_Twenty-nine_

Colonel French's interest in Ben Dudley's affairs had not been
permitted to interfere with his various enterprises. Work on the chief
of these, the cotton mill, had gone steadily forward, with only
occasional delays, incident to the delivery of material, the weather,
and the health of the workmen, which was often uncertain for a day or
two after pay day. The coloured foreman of the brick-layers had been
seriously ill; his place had been filled by a white man, under whom
the walls were rising rapidly. Jim Green, the foreman whom the colonel
had formerly discharged, and the two white brick-layers who had quit
at the same time, applied for reinstatement. The colonel took the two
men on again, but declined to restore Green, who had been discharged
for insubordination.

Green went away swearing vengeance. At Clay Joh