ned: he
was almost as proud of it as he was of Lois when she was born. Most of all
remembering the good times in his life, he went back to Lois. It was all
good, there, to go back to. What a little chub she used to be!
Remembering, with bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant to try and
do better, on her account, but had kept putting off and putting off until
now. And now--Did nothing lie before him but to go back and rot yonder?
Was that the end, because he never had learned better, and was a "dam'
nigger"?

"I'll _not_ leave my girl!" he muttered, going up and down,--"I'll _not_
leave my girl!"

If Holmes did sleep above him, the trial of the day, of which we have seen
nothing, came back sharper in sleep. While the strong self in the man lay
torpid, whatever holier power was in him came out, undaunted by defeat,
and unwearied, and took the form of dreams, those slighted messengers of
God, to soothe and charm and win him out into fuller, kindlier life. Let
us hope that they did so win him; let us hope that even in that unreal
world the better nature of the man triumphed at last, and claimed its
reward before the terrible reality broke upon him.

Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiled up in one
of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. She remembered how she
used to play in them, before she went into the mill. The mill,--even now,
with the vague dread of some uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all
fear in its old hated shadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in
it, came from it, she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking. It
loomed up now, with the square patch of ashen sky above, black, heavy with
years of remembered agony and loss. In Lois's hopeful, warm life this was
the one uncomprehended monster. Her crushed brain, her unwakened powers,
resented their wrong dimly to the mass of iron and work and impure smells,
unconscious of any remorseless power that wielded it. It was a monster,
she thought, through the sleepy, dreading night,--a monster that kept her
wakeful with a dull, mysterious terror.

When the night grew sultry and deepest, she started from her half-doze to
see her father come stealthily out and go down the street. She must have
slept, she thought, rubbing her eyes, and watching him out of sight,--and
then, creeping out, turned to glance at the mill. She cried out, shrill
with horror. It was a live monster now,--in one swift instant, alive wi