will upon the heart pleadings of an earnest
humble soul."

CHAPTER XXXII.

_Working and Waiting._

Tiara had gone home from her painful interview with Mrs. Ellwood, and
sought the seclusion of her room for the purpose of trying to think out
a course of action. She was able, she felt, to make all things plain to
Ensal, but in order to do this it would be necessary to make
disclosures, which, if given publicity, would very materially affect the
welfare of others. She felt that Ensal would sacredly guard her
revelations, but her disclosures would be of little service to him if he
could not use them to protect himself in case the charge against her
became public.

Not desiring to put him in a possibly embarrassing position, Tiara
concluded to bear her sorrow until such a time as she would be free to
defend herself openly, if such a course became necessary. As to when she
would be in a position to do this, Tiara was utterly unable to tell and,
to add to the horror of the situation, there was absolutely nothing that
she could do to advance her interests. Chance, blind chance, so far as
she could see, had her fate in hand, and to all the pleadings of her
heart as to what was to become of her, no answer came.

The time came for Ensal to depart, and the lips of Tiara were yet sealed
by circumstances and did not utter the word that would have set all
matters right with her, but wofully wrong with some others, perhaps. It
soon became evident to Tiara that she could not stand the strain of a
life of hopeless brooding and Ensal had not long been out of America
before she began to cast around for a line of endeavor.

Before leaving America, Ensal had published the address which he had
prepared in his contest with Earl, and Tiara chose as her mission the
placing of a copy thereof in every American home, feeling that it would
draw to conditions in the South a greater degree of interest on the part
of the nation as a whole.

Not only did Tiara thus appeal to outside influences for an amelioration
of conditions, but she also addressed herself to matters that depended
upon forces operating within the race. She looked upon the dead line in
the business world as being as baneful as that in the political world.

This spirit of caste in the upper grades of employment in the South
forbade Negroes from working side by side with the whites. She felt that
the most practicable manner of banishing this dead line was for Negroe