ok her arm
to assist her in the mere physical effort of standing.

"What is the matter, Mrs. Dildine?" he asked in a shocked tone. "What's
happened to Cissie?"

Vannie began weeping again with a faint gasping and a racking of her
flat chest.

"It's--it's--O-o-oh, Peter!" She put an arm about him and began weeping
against him. He soothed her, patted her shoulder, at the same time
staring at the side of her head, wondering what could have dealt her
this blow.

Presently she steadied herself and began explaining in feeble little
phrases, sandwiched between sobs and gasps:

"She--tuk a brooch--Kep'--kep' layin' it roun' in--h-her way, th-that
young Sam Arkwright did,--a-an' finally she--she tuk hit. N-nen, when he
seen he h-had her, he said sh-sh-she 'd haf to d-do wh-whut he said, or
he'd sen' her to-to ja-a-il!" Vannie sobbed drearily for a few moments
on Peter's breast. "Sh-she did fuh a while: 'n 'en sh-she broke off wid
h-him, anyhow, an'--an' he swo' out a wa'nt an sont her to jail!" The
mother sobbed without comfort, and finally added: "Sh-she in a delicate
fix now, an' 'at jail goin' to be a gloomy place fuh Cissie."

The three negroes stood motionless in the dusty hallway, motionless save
for the racking of Vannie's sobs.

Tump Pack stirred himself.

"Well, we gotta git her out." His words trailed off. He stood wrinkling
his half-inch of brow. "I wonder would dey exchange pris'ners; wonder ef
I could go up an' serve out Cissie's term."

"Oh, Tump!" gasped the woman, "ef you only could!"

"I'll step an' see, Miss Vannie. 'At sho ain't no place fuh a nice gal
lak Cissie." Tump turned on his mission, evidently intending to walk to
Jonesboro and offer himself in the place of the prisoner.

Peter supported Vannie back into the poor living-room, and placed her in
the old rocking-chair before the empty hearth. There was where he had
sat the evening Cissie made her painful confession to him. Only now did
he realize the whole of what Cissie was trying to confess.

Peter Siner overtook Tump Pack a little way down the crescent, opposite
the Berry cabin. The thoroughfare was deserted, because the weather was
cold and the scantily clad children were indoors. However, from every
cabin came sound of laughing and romping, and now and then a youngster
darted through the cold from one hut to another.

It seemed to Peter Siner only a little while since he and Ida May were
skittering through wintry weather from one fir