"Poor fool," she said, clasping her hands over her knee and gazing at me. "You are not a man to have a wife; you are a piece of property, and no matter how tightly I might cling to you, you could be torn from me and sold, and the howl of the auctioneer, yelling for another animal to be brought forward, would drown my cries of distress. Oh, I have stood in the slave market, and I have seen a child snatched from the arms of its heart-broken mother. Old Mistress used to take me there to show me the bitterness of life. And you would be the father of a stock to be sold! Poor fool, put your foot on such a thought." She rocked herself and laughed, and upon my soul, for a moment I fancied that she was a witch, endowed with a frightful wisdom; but a bough moved, the strong light fell upon her, and she sat there, warm, rich and human. "Have you given your strange views to Miss May?" "There are two children in our family and one of them is Miss May," she said. "But don't you read to her?" "Yes, the 'Children of the Abbey' and let her cry herself to sleep. She is a child." "Titine, there is strange blood in you; you are Cleopatra come to earth again; and the serpent of slavery is at your breast." She shuddered. "And it may suck out my life, but mine alone," she said. "Titine, a week ago I could not have believed it possible to be placed in such a position; I could not have believed that a creature like you existed in the world. The knowledge of slavery has always been a burden; you make it a snake and it bites me. But tell me, what are you going to do? Are you going to spend your life in servitude?" "Who is there to take me away?" she asked, and the look she gave me stilled my blood, but it flowed again with a spurt, and leaping to my feet I ran to the edge of the cliff and looked far below, at the lengthening shadows, the crows sailing round and round, the cattle feeding in a distant meadow. I turned back to her. She did not look at me. I sat down beside her, sought to take her hand, but she moved and motioned me away. "Titine, once I thought I saw a hangman's rope--the maids have told you a part of the story--and money was thrown at me, but I would not run away so deeply was I devoted to Bob Gradley. I thought that the devil was trying to tempt me, but now I believe that the temptation comes from God." "You have misunderstood me," she said, and her words were freezing. "I would not suggest a temptation; I would not run away with you. I will be frank--I don't love you, and if I did, I would not run away to be brought back in shame. Let us be fellow servants, Dan?" "But is there no hope left in the world?" "Do you read the Bible, and do you find hope there?" "Come, let us go home," I said. CHAPTER XXIV.