‘And every one believes it was my own baby I took to Mammy Lila, Rosa, the same as you did?’ ‘What _can_ they believe, Missy Liz? I didn’t know what to believe myself. Dere’s not too many quite white babies knocking about de island, you know, and dis little one has no coloured blood in it. Dat’s plain to be seen. And dat Judy is so impident. She’d say anything. She says she skeered you so when she brought the baby back agin when Mammy Lila died, dat you nearly fainted, and it was de shock and de trouble that has killed de poor Doctor right away.’ ‘Well, well, Rosa, don’t speak of it any more at present. It turns my heart sick to hear it. Take the infant into my room, and put it to bed. Judy’s talk, however untrue, can do me no further harm; and you mustn’t forget, whilst judging her, that you thought and said pretty much the same yourself.’ ‘Ah, yes, Missy Liz; but den I’se berry sorry, and I’ll be a good gal to you now,’ replied Rosa, with the nigger’s ready excuse for anything they may have done wrong. ‘And I believe you, so let the matter rest,’ said Lizzie, as the yellow girl disappeared with the baby, and she sat down at the table, resting her head upon her hand. What a difference twenty-four hours had made in her life! Twenty-four hours ago she had possessed a father who loved her, a lover who respected her, friends who believed in her, a good name and a spotless reputation. Now, she seemed to have lost everything at one fell blow. Her father was gone, her lover lost, her friends stood afar off. She was publicly spoken of as an unmarried mother, and Maraquita’s sin was laid at her door. And she had no means of repudiating the scandal. Nothing but her bare word stood between her reputation and the world. Who would believe her? What woman would _not_ deny such a crushing shame? Her solemn oath to her father, the fathomless obligation under which they stood to Mr Courtney, the awful consequences to their benefactor which must follow a revelation of the truth, stared Lizzie in the face, like giant obstacles that forbid her even attempting to surmount them. What would she and her dead father have been but for the generosity extended to them through life by the planter’s hand? He, a felon and a convict, and _she_, the daughter of a disgraced and dishonoured man, pointed at by the finger of scorn, shunned by the community of the virtuous and honest, a pariah and an outcast amongst men. No wonder her father had exacted her silence and obedience at the price of her salvation.