Wyeth started. Bobb Lee's wife! Bobb Lee was the Negro Beasely had told him about.... And he had threatened to kill her if she played ball this day. She was playing. He felt a strange pulling at his nerves as he watched her, and his imagination began to play. He was afraid of these Negroes. Even if they did nothing, they could, so far as he had learned, be depended upon to commit murder. No one, perhaps, paid much attention to a Negro's threat; but he didn't feel just right in the stomach. A chilly feeling was creeping upward and held him. He looked about him. For a moment he had forgotten the game. The men were now on the bases, while the girls were swinging in many ways at the ball. The wife of Bobb Lee was there at the bat. Around him the crowd watched her closely, expectantly. He did likewise. "B-a-l-l one!" cried the umpire. The woman was a stout Negress, with square, broad hips, and was conspicuous in the green uniform. Two balls and one strike were against her, when the fourth came whizzing across the plate. She struck it with terrific force, that sent it just over the heads of all and beyond the fielders, making a clean home run, as well as bringing in two girls that were on bases. The cheering that followed was deafening. For a time Sidney forgot the threats of the bad Negro. Again the wife of Bobb Lee was pitching. More speed had developed since last she held the ball, and she was apparently more clever. She hurled the ball across the plate so swiftly, that the crowd could hardly see it, nor could the batters, whom, one by one she fanned. Two balls and two strikes she had on the last one. Wyeth's gaze, wandering across the diamond, observed John Smith standing to the other side, and again the words of Beasely came to his memory. He wished the thought and the threat would not so persist. He tried to concentrate his mind on the game, but the words lingered. During his whole life, Sidney now recalled, he was peculiarly given to predestination. If he had not seen anyone he had known for some time, and happened to meet him, he could always recall that he had just thought of him a few days before, or it might have been only a few hours before. Strangely, as he watched the game, there came to him a premonition that something was going to happen. He felt it so strongly that he stood waiting for it. It was only a question of a little while. The wife of Bobb Lee had raised her arm and was winding up for the last throw, when suddenly, from across the field in the crowd, came a cry as of some one mad, enraged. In the still, humid air, the cry of a woman resounded, and fell upon the ears of the crowd like a cry of death. There was a shot, and so quiet did every one appear at the moment, that the noise it made sounded like a cannon. A woman rushed upon the diamond, and fell prone on her face, with a last scream that disturbed the quiet.