tunned him as if somebody had
fired a gun close to his ear. He stared back at her stupidly.

"Oh! you great man!" she repeated slowly, glancing right and left as
if meditating a sudden escape. "And you think that I am going to starve
with you. You are nobody now. You think my mamma and Leonard would let
me go away? And with you! With you," she repeated scornfully, raising
her voice, which woke up the child and caused it to whimper feebly.

"Joanna!" exclaimed Willems.

"Do not speak to me. I have heard what I have waited for all these
years. You are less than dirt, you that have wiped your feet on me. I
have waited for this. I am not afraid now. I do not want you; do not
come near me. Ah-h!" she screamed shrilly, as he held out his hand in an
entreating gesture--"Ah! Keep off me! Keep off me! Keep off!"

She backed away, looking at him with eyes both angry and frightened.
Willems stared motionless, in dumb amazement at the mystery of anger and
revolt in the head of his wife. Why? What had he ever done to her? This
was the day of injustice indeed. First Hudig--and now his wife. He felt
a terror at this hate that had lived stealthily so near him for years.
He tried to speak, but she shrieked again, and it was like a needle
through his heart. Again he raised his hand.

"Help!" called Mrs. Willems, in a piercing voice. "Help!"

"Be quiet! You fool!" shouted Willems, trying to drown the noise of
his wife and child in his own angry accents and rattling violently the
little zinc table in his exasperation.

From under the house, where there were bathrooms and a tool closet,
appeared Leonard, a rusty iron bar in his hand. He called threateningly
from the bottom of the stairs.

"Do not hurt her, Mr. Willems. You are a savage. Not at all like we,
whites."

"You too!" said the bewildered Willems. "I haven't touched her. Is this
a madhouse?" He moved towards the stairs, and Leonard dropped the bar
with a clang and made for the gate of the compound. Willems turned back
to his wife.

"So you expected this," he said. "It is a conspiracy. Who's that sobbing
and groaning in the room? Some more of your precious family. Hey?"

She was more calm now, and putting hastily the crying child in the big
chair walked towards him with sudden fearlessness.

"My mother," she said, "my mother who came to defend me from you--man
from nowhere; a vagabond!"

"You did not call me a vagabond when you hung round my neck--before we
were marri