Inside the big, square room, with its simple furnishings and drab tints, Carson sank, weary from his nervous strain and loss of sleep, into an easy-chair and motioned his friend to take another, but Keith, nervously twirling his hat in his hands, continued to stand. “It's awful, old man, simply awful!” he said. “I've been there since sundown trying to pacify that old man and woman, but what was the use?” “Then she's afraid--” Carson began. “Afraid? Good God! how could she help it? The negro preacher and his wife came to her and Lewis and frankly tried to prepare them for the worst. Uncle Lewis is speechless, and Linda is past the tear-shedding stage. Hand in hand the old pair simply pace the floor like goaded brutes with human hearts and souls bound up in them. Then Helen--the poor, dear girl! Isn't this a beautiful homecoming for her? I feel like fighting, and yet there's nothing to hit but empty, heartless air. I don't care if you know it, Carson.” Keith sank into a chair and leaned forward, his eyes glistening with the condensed dew of tense emotion. “I don't deny it. Helen is the only girl I ever cared for. She's treated me very kindly ever since she discovered my feeling, and given me to understand in the sweetest way the utter hopelessness of my case, but I still feel the same. I thought I was growing out of it, but seeing her sorrow to-day has shown me what she is to me--and what she always will be. I'll love her all my life, Carson. She's suffering terribly over this. She loves her old mammy as much as if they were the same flesh and blood. Oh, it was pitiful, simply pitiful! Helen was trying to pacify her just now, and the old woman suddenly laid her hand on her breast and cried out: 'Don't talk ter me, honey child, I nursed bofe you en Pete on dis here breast, an' dat boy's _me_--my own self, heart en soul, en ef God let's dem men hang 'im ter-night, I'll curse 'Im ter my grave.'” “Poor old woman!” Carson sighed. “If it has to come to her, it would be better to have it over with. It would have been better if I had stood back last night and let them have their way.” “Oh no,” protested Keith; “that's Linda's sole comfort. She hardly draws a breath that doesn't utter your name. She still believes that her only hope rests in you. She says you'll yet think of something--that you'll yet do something to prevent the thing. She cries that out every now and then. Oh, Carson, I don't amount to anything, but before God I can truthfully say that I'd give my life to have Linda talk that way about me--before Helen.” Carson groaned, his tense hands were locked like prongs of steel in front of him, his face was deathly pale. “You wouldn't like any sort of talk or idle compliments if you were bound hand and foot as I am,” he said. “It's mockery. It's vinegar rubbed into my wounds. It's hell!”