f Aurora. He missed
her--missed her at every turn, and in every hour of his convalescence. As
a reward for her love and tenderness, he had afflicted her with the
greatest bitterness her brave heart could bear. His eyes were fixed upon
the floor, and eventually discovered two oval objects half buried in the
hard earth. He stooped to pick them up, and found them to be the halves
of the locket that contained Lucy Woodrow's miniature. The case had been
stamped into the floor with the heel of a boot, the pieces were torn
apart, and the portrait ground off the ivory on which it was painted.
With the fragments of the locket in his hand, Jim pursued a new train of
thought, but there was no comfort in it. He recalled Joy's words: 'I
won't bind the strange man you may be to-morrow.' Her love had been too
strong for her philosophy. What of his? Had he ever seriously considered
the possibilities of a life wholly apart from her? His mind flew to Lucy,
but by no effort could he devote his thoughts to either of the women who
had so deeply influenced him.

It was no longer possible to keep the truth about Mike Burton from the
invalid, and Mary broke the news to him as gently as she could, The shock
seemed to stun Jim's sensibilities for a time. As the numbness wore off,
a bitter, blind hatred grew in his heart against the men he chose to
regard as Mike's murderers, and he had a ferocious longing for vengeance.
Again law and order, the forces of society, had intervened to embitter
him. His subsequent sorrow over his mate was deep and lasting. He felt
now that although their friendship had been free of demonstrativeness, it
had been warmed with a generous sincerity.

Done awakened one day, with some sense of fear, to the knowledge that he
was drifting back into a morbid condition. He found he had bred a
disposition to brood over his weakness. The loss of Mike and the
disappearance of Aurora were becoming grievances that he cherished with
youthful unreason. He determined to rejoin the Peetrees at once, and,
although far from being his old self physically, began to make
preparations for the return to Jim Crow.

'There's somethin' I'd like you to be doin' fer me afore you go, mate,'
said Ben Kyley to Jim one evening.

'Well, you know I'll do it.

'I reckoned you would. You see, I've been thinkin' of marryin' my wife,
an' I'd like you to be bes' man.'

'You've been thinking!' cried Mary. 'No, Jimmy, I've been doing the
thinking: Kyley