Cassie and Plato watched him until he became an indistinguishable black spot upon the prairie; then they turned wearily towards the cabins. They had seen and shared the long sorrow and discontent of the household; they hardly expected anything but trouble in some form or other. Both were also thinking of the punishment they were likely to receive; for James Lorimer never failed to make an example of evil-doers; he would hardly be disposed to pass over their disobedience. Early in the morning Plato was called by his master. There was little trace of the night of mental agony the latter had passed. He was one of those complete characters who join to perfect physical health a mind whose fibres do not easily show the severest strain. "Tell Master David to come here." "Massa David, sar! Massa David done gone sar!" The old man's lips were trembling, but otherwise his nervous restlessness was over. He looked his master calmly in the face. "Did I not tell you to stop him?" "Ef de Lord in heaven want him stopped, Massa James, He'll send the messenger--Plato could not do it!" "How did he go?" "On de little brown mare--his own horse done broke all up." "How much money did you give him?" "Money, sar?" "How much? Tell the truth." "Four hundred dollars." "That will do. Tell Cassie I want my breakfast." At breakfast he glanced at Lulu's empty chair, but said nothing. In the house all was as if no great sin and sorrow had darkened its threshold and left a stain upon its hearthstone. The churning and cleaning was going on as usual. Only Cassie was quieter, and Lulu lay, white and motionless, in the little vine-shaded room that looked too cool and pretty for grief to enter. The unhappy father sat still all day, pondering many things that he had not before thought of. Every footfall made his heart turn sick, but the night came, and there was no further bad news. On the second day he went into Lulu's room, hoping to say a word of comfort to her. She listened apathetically, and turned her face to the wall with a great sob. He began to feel some irritation in the atmosphere of misery which surrounded him. It was very hard to be made so wretched for another's sin. The thought in an instant became a reproach. Was he altogether innocent? The second and third days passed; he began to be sure then that David must have reached a point beyond the probability of pursuit. On the fourth day he went to the cotton field. He visited the overseer's house, he spent the day in going over accounts and making estimates. He tried to forget that _something_ had happened which made life appear a different thing. In the grey, chill, misty evening he returned home. The negroes were filing down the long lane before him, each bearing their last basket of cotton--all of them silent, depressed with their weariness, and intensely sensitive to the melancholy influence of the autumn twilight.