"Been savin' it all my life, chile--all the money yo' blessed mother give me an' all I earned sence I was free. I laid it up for a rainy day an' now, bless God, it's not only rainin' but sleetin' an' cold an' snowin' besides, an' so I went to the old socks. It's you all's, an' all paid fur, an' old mammy to wait on you. I'm gwine to go after Miss Helen before the mill closes, else she'll be gwine back to Millwood, knowin' nothin' of all this surprise for her. No, sah,--nary one of yo' mother's chillun shall ever wuck in a mill." Conway bowed his head. Then he drew Lily to him as he knelt and said: "Oh, God help me--make me a man, make me a Conway again." It was his first prayer in years--the beginning of his reformation. And every reformation began with a prayer. CHAPTER XVII THE DOUBLE THAT DIED Two hours before the mill closed Richard Travis came hurriedly into the mill office. There had been business engagements to be attended to in the town before leaving that night for the North, and he had been absent from the mill all day. Now everything was ready even to his packed trunk--all except Helen. "He's come for her," said Jud to himself as he walked over to the superintendent's desk. Then amid the hum and the roar of the mill he bent his head and the two whispered low and earnestly together. As Jud talked in excited whispers, Travis lit a cigar and listened coolly--to Jud's astonishment--even cynically. "An' what you reckin' she done--the ole 'oman? Tuck the little gyrl right out of my han's an' kerried her home--marched off as proud as ole Queen Victory." "Home? What home?" asked Travis. "An' that's the mischief of it," went on Jud. "I thort she was lyin' about the home, an' I stepped down there at noon an' I hope I may die to-night if she ain't got 'em all fixed up as snug as can be, an' the Major is there as sober es a jedge, an' lookin' like a gentleman an' actin' like a Conway. Say, but you watch yo' han'. That's blood that won't stan' monkeyin' with when it's in its right mind. An' the little home the ole 'oman's got, she bought it with her own money, been savin' it all her life an' now"-- "What did you say to her this morning?" asked Travis. "Oh, I cussed her out good--the old black"-- A peculiar light flashed in Richard Travis' eyes. Never before had the Whipper-in seen it. It was as if he had looked up and seen a halo around the moon. "To do grand things--to do grand things--like that--negro that she is! No--no--of course you did not understand. Our moral sense is gone--we mill people. It is atrophied--yours and mine and all of us--the soul has gone and mine? My God, why did you give it back to me now--this ghost soul that has come to me with burning breath?"