Miss Worth knelt beside the girl and with her arms around her, she talked in soothing undertones. For almost an hour the two sat clinging together. Not a minute had Miss Worth's voice ceased. As the girl huddled, listening tensely, the tears ceased and dried on her distressed face. Presently, she arose and walked aimlessly around the room. "But you-all don't believe as we do," she said. "Our people are shot down in their own yards, and when we call upon the law, the law only turns the assassin loose. Then the law itself comes to kill. Oh--Oh, dear Miss Worth--you can never understand--you can never know what this is. Only we up thah who suffer these things know its sting. Who could go on and live without redress and not strike back? If you had suffered this as I have--if you could see what I have--if you could see now--this minute--what I see--thah--thah----" she ended in stifling utterances, as she stared at a spot of moonlight that had strayed across the floor. Now, totally oblivious to her whereabouts, and utterly unconscious of Miss Worth's presence, she fell to her knees on the floor, stretching her arms out over the pallid beam, in benediction, and lowered her hands to fondle the face that her fevered fancy held there; and to touch the still, immobile bosom with its bullet-spot. And again her grief broke loose beyond restraint and she sobbed aloud. A great lump had brought an ache into Miss Worth's throat, and she, too, was crying. She lifted the girl up and led her back to the window-seat. Here she whispered solace to her for a time. Finally, Miss Worth arose and left Belle-Ann at the window. When she reached the door she turned back. "Remember, dearest," she said, "Know ye the truth and the truth shall make ye free. I'll be waiting up for you--I shall not retire until you come. If you see the light--come to me--I'll be waiting and praying, too." CHAPTER XXVI BELLE-ANN HAS A VISION After a time Belle-Ann arose wearily to retire. Then she laid her troubled head on the pillow and closed her tear-wet eyes and finally dropped into a restive sleep. And in this furtive slumber a titanic, stirring dream came to her. The ethereal universe convulsed and burst asunder, and opened up to her startled vision a celestial theatre of glory that gripped her heart with its untold resplendence. And roundabout, leagues high, gloss-buffed walls of amethyst, and gleaming pillars of pearl girded this splendor. And above this scintillating heavenly realm an amphitheatre of sinuous clouds circulated, charged with pigments and prismed lustres; shot, lanced and plumed with a woof of multi-colors that no tongue could tell; and out from this spectacle of molten glory, a multitudinous horde emerged, trooping through its liquid opalescence.