Lemuel tenderly stroked her beautiful hair, but did not essay to answer her question. The fact of the matter was, he regarded the Negro problem as growing graver and more complicated as time wore on. The strenuous efforts of the Negro to rise and the decrease of the distance between the two races he viewed with alarm. He did not care to communicate his real feelings to his wife, so he said nothing. Mrs. Dalton's nature was of a light and volatile kind and she thought of the Negroes only for an instant. Wresting herself out of her husband's arms, she skipped out of the room. She immediately reappeared at the door of the library and threw a kiss at Lemuel in girlish fashion and was soon mounted and riding out to get the benefit of the brisk morning air. As she saunters along, we may learn a few points in her history that bear upon the case unto which events are leading. She was born and reared in a section of the State of Maine where no Negroes whatever live. It was here that Lemuel Dalton found, wooed, and wedded her. She had read from time to time of the crimes of brutal Negroes and the summary punishments administered to them, and she had rather imperceptibly grown to regard the prevailing race type of the Negroes as being criminal. This opinion was not an unnatural outgrowth of the newspaper habit of giving unlimited space and flaming headlines to the vicious Negro, the exotic, while the many millions who day by day went uncomplainingly to their daily tasks and wrought worthily for the country's welfare, received but scant attention. The opinion that this state of affairs caused Mrs. Dalton to imbibe, was the further fostered by the atmosphere of the Dalton house, which was so thoroughly hostile to the Negro. The whole of the Dalton place was now manned by white help, and Negroes would not so much as go there on errands of business. It was from such a home and under the conditions outlined that Mrs. Dalton went forth for her morning ride. It was the noise of Mrs. Dalton's horse that caused Tony Marshall to pause in his attempt to kill the squirrel. CHAPTER XXVII. THEY FEAR EACH OTHER.