rel. All the neighbors
behaved as if her excuse of ill-health were sufficient to account for
her return South to escape the rigors of a Northern winter. Alwyn, and
Alwyn alone, really knew. Well, it was her blindness, and she must right
it quietly and quickly with hard ruthless plainness. She blushed again
at the shame of it; then she began to excuse.

After all, which was worse--a Cresswell or an Alwyn? It was no sin that
Alwyn had done; it was simply ignorant presumption, and she must correct
him firmly, but gently, like a child. What a crazy muddle the world was!
She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp.
She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. She
thought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn and given her herself a very
bad quarter of an hour. What a world it was, and after all how far was
this black boy wrong? Just then Colonel Cresswell rode up behind and
greeted her.

She started almost guiltily, and again a sense of the awkwardness of her
position reddened her face and neck. The Colonel dismounted, despite her
protest, and walked beside her. They chatted along indifferently, of the
crops, her brother's new baby, the proposed mill.

"Mary," his voice abruptly struck a new note. "I don't like the way you
talk with that Alwyn nigger."

She was silent.

"Of course," he continued, "you're Northern born and you have been a
teacher in this school and feel differently from us in some ways; but
mark what I say, a nigger will presume on the slightest pretext, and you
must keep them in their place. Then, too, you are a Cresswell now--"

She smiled bitterly; he noticed it, but went on:

"You are a Cresswell, even if you have caught Harry up to some of his
deviltry,"--she started,--"and got miffed about it. It'll all come out
right. You're a Cresswell, and you must hold yourself too high to
'Mister' a nigger or let him dream of any sort of equality."

He spoke pleasantly, but with a certain sharp insistence that struck a
note of fear in Mary's heart. For a moment she thought of writing Alwyn
not to call. But, no; a note would be unwise. She and Colonel Cresswell
lunched rather silently.

"Well, I must get to town," he finally announced. "The mill directors
meet today. If Maxwell calls by about that lumber tell him I'll see him
in town." And away he went.

He had scarcely reached the highway and ridden a quarter of a mile or
so when he spied Bles Alwyn hurrying ac