s in juxtaposition with overwhelming millions of
darker people throughout the earth, and we must cling to the caste idea
if we would prevent a lapse that would taint our blood and eventually
undermine our greatness. It is hard, but it is civilization. We cannot
find this girl guilty. It would be declaring that marriage between a
white man and a Negro woman is a possibility."

A vote was taken and the jury returned to the court room to render the
verdict. "The prisoner at the bar will stand up," said the judge. Eunice
stood up and her little boy stood up as well. There was the element of
pathos in the standing up of that little boy, for the audience knew that
his destiny was involved in the case.

"Has the jury reached a verdict?" asked the judge.

"We have," replied the foreman.

"Please announce it."

The audience held its breath in painful suspense. Eunice directed her
burning gaze to the lips of the foreman, that she might, if possible,
catch his fateful words even before they were fully formed.

"We, the jury, find the prisoner not guilty."

"Murder!" wildly shrieked Eunice. "Doomed! Doomed! They call us Negroes,
my son, and everybody knows what that means!" Her tones of despair moved
every hearer.

The judge quietly shed a few tears and many another person in the
audience wept. The crowd filed out, leaving Eunice clasping her boy to
her bosom, mother and son mingling their tears together. Tiara lingered
in the corridor to greet Eunice when the latter should come out of the
room. She had thought to speak to her on this wise:

"Eunice, we have each other left. Let us be sisters as we were in the
days of our childhood."

But when Tiara confronted Eunice, the latter looked at her scornfully
and passed on. When Tiara somewhat timidly caught hold of her dress as
if to detain her, Eunice spat in her face and tore herself loose.

CHAPTER XXXV.

_Eunice! Eunice!_

With slow, uncertain step, a wild haunted look in her eye, Eunice,
clutching her little boy's hand until it pained him, moved down the
corridor toward the door leading out of the court house. She was about
to face the world in the South as a member of the Negro race, and the
very thought thereof spread riot within her soul. The nearer she drew to
the door the greater was the anguish of her spirit. More than once she
turned and retraced her steps in the corridor, trying to muster the
courage to face the outer world in her new racial alignmen