aid to us in our search. Have we your permission to
see this woman and to question her?"

"Certainly not," Mrs. Wingfield said; "but if you have any question to
ask I will ask her and give you her answer."

"We want to know whether she has seen her husband since the day of his
flight from the plantation."

"I shall certainly not ask her that question, Mr. Sheriff. I have no
doubt that, as the place from which he has escaped is only a few miles
from here, he did come to see his wife. It would have been very strange
if he did not. I hope that by this time the man is hundreds of miles
away. He was brutally treated by a brutal master, who, I believe,
deliberately set to work to make him run away, so that he could hunt him
down and punish him. I presume, sir, you do not wish to search this
house, and you do not suppose that the man is hidden here. As to the
slave-huts and the plantation, you can, of course, search them
thoroughly; but as it is now more than a fortnight since the man
escaped, it is not likely you will find him hiding within a few miles of
his master's plantation."

So saying, she went into the house and shut the door behind her.

Mr. Jackson ground his teeth with rage, but the sheriff rode off toward
the slave-huts without a word. The position of Mrs. Wingfield of the
Orangery, connected as she was with half the old families of Virginia,
and herself a large slave-owner, was beyond suspicion, and no one would
venture to suggest that such a lady could have the smallest sympathy for
a runaway slave.

"She was down upon you pretty hot, Mr. Jackson," the sheriff said as
they rode off. "You don't seem to be in her good books." Jackson
muttered an imprecation.

"It is certainly odd," the sheriff went on, "after what you were telling
me about her son pitching into Andrew over flogging this very slave,
that she should go and buy his wife. Still, that's a very different
thing from hiding a runaway. I dare say that, as she says, the fellow
came here to see his wife when he first ran away; but I don't think you
will find him anywhere about here now. It's pretty certain from what we
hear that he hasn't made for the North, and where the fellow can be
hiding I can't think. Still the woods about this country are mighty big,
and the fellow can go out on the farms and pick corn and keep himself
going for a long time. But he's sure to be brought up, sooner or later."

A thorough search was made of the slave-huts, and t