"No! no! no! mother. O no! never," said Ensal, losing all his wonted calmness, but kissing his mother to let her know that his displeasure over the subject did not extend to her for mentioning it. "My son, I shall hold you in utter disfavor unto the day of my death if you, without just cause, declare war upon womankind. How can you, my son!" said Mrs. Ellwood reproachfully. Ensal grew calm and looked long and lovingly at his mother. He saw that for some reason or other his mother had taken up the battle against him and that he was under the necessity of exonerating himself. Said Ensal: "Mother, I am going to divulge to you a secret which I had firmly resolved to carry to the grave with me. I have withheld it from you, not because I mistrusted you, my dear, dear mother, but for the sake of another. In all my life, mother, I have seen but the one girl whom I have loved, Tiara Merlow--and she loved another!" The mother shook her head and smiled knowingly. "Ah, but I know, mother. The object of her love was a white man. Gus Martin saw him kiss her and killed him, killed the Rev. Percy G. Marshall. The letter which gave me so much trouble told me all, told me all! O my God! She loved another." Mrs. Ellwood sat and looked at Ensal utterly dazed. She arose and, thoroughly weakened physically by the shock of Ensal's information, crept out of the room to Tiara. "Darling," she gasped, "he says that you loved another--a white man--a preacher--Percy Marshall. Daughter, darling, deny it! Deny it!" "O! God of Heaven, what shall I do! What shall I do," groaned the unhappy Tiara. With one hand pressed upon her throbbing heart and the other laid upon her fevered brow the beautiful girl left the Ellwood home. CHAPTER XXX. _Mr. A. Hostility._ It will be recalled that in a very early chapter we saw a cadaverous looking white man, wearing a much worn suit of clothes, making a sketch of Ensal's home, as the latter was going out to make arrangements with Mrs. Crawford for the introduction of Tiara into the best circles of Negro life in Almaville. And now in the crisis of the relations of Ensal and Tiara he comes forward to inject his peculiar virus into the awful wound made in Ensal's heart by the disclosures of the Gus Martin letter. Tiara, burdened creature, was hardly out of sight of Ensal's home when this man made his appearance and was ushered into the study. When he had taken the seat proffered him, he said: "Gus Martin wrote me a letter, enclosing a copy of a letter which he had sent to you." "O heaven, be merciful. Let it not come to that!" said the agonizing Ensal, shocked that Gus had let another know of the matter that had so disturbed him.