et, muttering to
herself incoherently. He had felt a certain childish awe at the sight of
one of God's creatures who had lost the light of reason, and he had
always vaguely understood that she was the victim of human cruelty,
though he had dated it farther back into the past. This was his first
knowledge of the real facts of the case.

He realized, too, for a moment, the continuity of life, how inseparably
the present is woven with the past, how certainly the future will be but
the outcome of the present. He had supposed this old wound healed. The
negroes were not a vindictive people. If, swayed by passion or emotion,
they sometimes gave way to gusts of rage, these were of brief duration.
Absorbed in the contemplation of their doubtful present and their
uncertain future, they gave little thought to the past,--it was a dark
story, which they would willingly forget. He knew the timeworn
explanation that the Ku-Klux movement, in the main, was merely an
ebullition of boyish spirits, begun to amuse young white men by playing
upon the fears and superstitions of ignorant negroes. Here, however, was
its tragic side,--the old wound still bleeding, the fruit of one
tragedy, the seed of another. He could not approve of Josh's application
of the Mosaic law of revenge, and yet the incident was not without
significance. Here was a negro who could remember an injury, who could
shape his life to a definite purpose, if not a high or holy one. When
his race reached the point where they would resent a wrong, there was
hope that they might soon attain the stage where they would try, and, if
need be, die, to defend a right. This man, too, had a purpose in life,
and was willing to die that he might accomplish it. Miller was willing
to give up his life to a cause. Would he be equally willing, he asked
himself, to die for it? Miller had no prophetic instinct to tell him how
soon he would have the opportunity to answer his own question. But he
could not encourage Josh to carry out this dark and revengeful purpose.
Every worthy consideration required him to dissuade his patient from
such a desperate course.

"You had better put away these murderous fancies, Josh," he said
seriously. "The Bible says that we should 'forgive our enemies, bless
them that curse us, and do good to them that despitefully use us.'"

"Yas, suh, I've l'arnt all dat in Sunday-school, an' I've heared de
preachers say it time an' time ag'in. But it 'pears ter me dat dis
f