sing
the two races from their bonds of suspicion and cruelty.

* * * * *

Slowly the old manor formed about Peter again, and he perceived that a
tapping on the door had summoned him back. He walked to the door with
his heart full of kindness for old Rose. She was bringing him his
supper. He felt as if he could take the old woman in his arms, and out
of the mere hugeness of his love sweeten her bitter life. The mulatto
opened the door as eagerly as if he were admitting some long-desired
friend; but when the shutter swung back, the old crone and her salver
were not there. All he could discern in the darkness were the white
pillars marking the night into panels. There was no light in the outer
kitchen. The whole manor was silent.

As he stood listening, the knocking was repeated, this time more
faintly. He fixed the sound at the window. He closed the door, walked
across the brilliant room, and opened the shutters.

For several moments he saw nothing more than the tall quadrangle of
blackness which the window framed; then a star or two pierced it; then
something moved. He saw a woman's figure standing close to the casement,
and out of the darkness Cissie Dildine's voice asked in its careful
English:

"Peter, may I come in?"

CHAPTER XIV

For a full thirty seconds Peter Siner stared at the girl at the window
before, even with her prompting, he thought of the amenity of asking her
to come inside. As a further delayed courtesy, he drew the Heppelwhite
chair toward her.

Cissie's face looked bloodless in the blanched light of the gasolene-
lamp. She forced a faint, doubtful smile.

"You don't seem very glad to see me, Peter."

"I am," he assured her, mechanically, but he really felt nothing but
astonishment and dismay. They filled his voice. He was afraid some one
would see Cissie in his room. His thoughts went flitting about the
premises, calculating the positions of the various trees and shrubs in
relation to the windows, trying to determine whether, and just where, in
his brilliantly lighted chamber the girl could be seen from the street.

The octoroon made no further comment on his confusion. Her eyes wandered
from him over the stately furniture and up to the stuccoed ceiling.

"They told me you lived in a wonderful room," she remarked absently.

"Yes, it's very nice," agreed Peter in the same tone, wondering what
might be the