u know what happened at the last election at
Coolidgeville--how the whites wouldn't let the niggers go to the polls
and the jolly row that was kicked up over it? Well, it looks as if that
sort of thing might happen HERE, don't you know, if Miss Dows takes up
these ideas."

"But I've reason to suppose--I mean," said Courtland correcting himself
with some deliberation, "that any one who knows Miss Dows' opinions
knows that these are not her views. Why should she take them up?"

"Because she takes HIM up," returned Champney hurriedly; "and even
if she didn't believe in them herself, she'd have to share the
responsibility with him in the eyes of every unreconstructed rowdy like
Tom Higbee and the rest of them. They'd make short work of her niggers
all the same."

"But I don't see why she should be made responsible for the opinions of
her cousin, nor do I exactly knew what 'taking him up' means," returned
Courtland quietly.

Champney moistened his dry lips with the julep and uttered a nervous
laugh. "Suppose we say her husband--for that's what his coming back here
means. Everybody knows that; you would, too, if you ever talked with her
about anything but business."

A bright flash of lightning that lit up the faces of the two men would
have revealed Champney's flushed features and Courtland's lack of color
had they been looking at each other. But they were not, and the long
reverberating crash of thunder which followed prevented any audible
reply from Courtland, and covered his agitation.

For without fully accepting Champney's conclusions he was cruelly
shocked at the young man's utterance of them. He had scrupulously
respected the wishes of Miss Sally and had faithfully--although never
hopelessly--held back any expression of his own love since their
conversation in the cemetery. But while his native truthfulness and
sense of honor had overlooked the seeming insincerity of her attitude
towards Champney, he had never justified his own tacit participation
in it, and the concealment of his own pretensions before his possible
rival. It was true that she had forbidden him to openly enter the
lists with her admirers, but Champney's innocent assumption of his
indifference to her and his consequent half confidences added poignancy
to his story. There seemed to be only one way to extricate himself,
and that was by a quarrel. Whether he did or did not believe Champney's
story, whether it was only the jealous exaggeration of a