wards the door. Burr Gordon, his face stern and white, stood
there looking across at his mother. She rose at once and went to him
with a stately glide, and they disappeared amid a distinct buzz of
curiosity that could no longer be restrained.

"They've gone into the parson's study," whispered one to another.
Some reported, upon the good authority of a neighbor's imagination,
that Parson Fair had "fallen down dead;" some that Dorothy had
fainted away; some that the black woman had killed her and her
father.

Meanwhile, Burr and his mother went into Parson Fair's study. There
stood the minister by his desk, with his proudly gentle brow all
furrowed, and his fine, long scholar-fingers clutching nervously at
the back of his arm-chair. He cast one glance around as the door
opened and shut, then looked away, then commanded himself with an
effort, and stepped forward and bowed courteously to the woman in her
black satin and pearls. Elvira Gordon looked from one to the other,
and the two men followed her glances, and each waited for the other
to speak.

"Where is she?" she asked, finally.

"She is up in her chamber," replied Parson Fair, in a voice more
strained with his own anxiety than it had ever been in the pulpit
over the sins of his fellow-men. "I know not what to say or do--I
never thought that daughter of mine--she will not come--"

Then Elvira Gordon cast a quick, sharp glance at her son, which he
met with proud misery and resentment. "It is quite true, mother," he
said. "We have both tried, and she will not come."

"Perhaps a woman--" said Parson Fair. "I wish her mother were alive,"
he added, with a break in his voice.

"I will go and see her if you think it is best," said Mrs. Gordon. In
her heart she rebelled bitterly against seeming to plead with this
unwilling bride to come to her son. Had she not felt guilty for her
son, with the conviction of his own secret deflection, she would
never have mounted the spiral stairs to Dorothy Fair's chamber that
night. Parson Fair led the way, and Burr followed. The people stood
back with a kind of awed curiosity. Some of the young girls were
quite pale, and their eyes were dilated. Folk longed to follow them
up-stairs, but they did not dare.

At the door of Dorothy's chamber crouched, like a fierce dog on
guard, the great black African woman. When the three drew near she
looked up at them with a hostile roll of savage eyes and a glitter of
white teeth between thick