"Aren't you awfully hot to go on doing that?" asked Neale, coming up behind her, from the road. She was startled because she had not heard him approach on the soft, cultivated ground of the garden. And as she turned her wet, crimson face up to his, he was startled himself. "Why, what's the matter, dear?" he asked anxiously. She sank back to a sitting position, drawing a long breath, mopping her forehead with her sleeve, as unconscious of her looks before Neale as though she had still been alone. She motioned him down beside her. "Oh, Neale, I'm so glad! How'd you happen to be so early? Maybe if we stay right out here, where the children won't know where we are, we can have a few minutes quite to ourselves. Toucle is going to get tea tonight. Neale, sit down a minute. I want to tell you something. I'm awfully upset. I went over to help Mr. Welles transplant his Brussels sprouts, and we got to talking. Neale, what do you suppose has been in his mind all this time we've been thinking him so happy and contented here?" "Doesn't he like Crittenden's? Find it dull?" "No, no, not that, a bit. He _loves_ it. It's heart-breaking to see how much he loves it!" She stopped, her voice shaking a little, and waited till she could get it under control. Her husband took her stained, dusty hand in his. She gave his fingers a little pressure, absently, not noting what she did, and seeing the corner of his handkerchief showing in the pocket of his shirt, she pulled it out with a nervous jerk, and wiped her face all over with it. He waited in silence. "Listen, Neale, I know it will sound perfectly crazy to you, at first. But you might as well believe it, for he is serious. It seems he's been getting lots more letters from that niece or cousin of his, down in Georgia. She tells him about things, how the Negroes are treated, all the Jim Crow business carried into every single detail of every single minute of every single day. It seems they're not badly treated as long as they'll stay day-laborers or servants, but . . . oh well, there's no need to go on with telling you . . . _you_ know. We all know well enough what the American attitude is. Only I didn't think it could be so bad, or so everlastingly kept up every minute, as this cousin tells him. I suppose she ought to know. She's lived there for forty years. She keeps citing instances she's seen." Marise broke out with a fierce, blaming sharpness, "I don't see what _business_ she had, writing him that way. I think it was beastly of her. Why couldn't she let him alone!"