g down the side street in the direction of
the Old Ladies' Home, and calling out to him, he scrambled over the ash
heaps and tomato cans, and emerged, irritated but smiling, into the
sunlight.

"I'm on my way to the bank. We'll walk down together," he remarked
almost gently, for, though he disapproved of Gabriel's religious
opinions and distrusted his financial judgment, the war-like little
rector represented the single romance of his life.

"I had intended stopping at the Old Ladies' Home, but I'll go on with
you instead," responded Gabriel. "I've just had a message from one of
our old servants calling me down to Cross's Corner," he pursued, "so I'm
in a bit of a hurry. That's a bad thing, that murder down there
yesterday, and I'm afraid it will mean trouble for the negroes. Mr.
Blylie, who came to market this morning, told me a crowd had tried to
lynch the fellow last night."

"Well, they've got to hang when they commit hanging crimes," replied
Cyrus stubbornly. "There's no way out of that. It's just, ain't it?"

"Yes, I suppose so," admitted Gabriel, "though, for my part, I've a
feeling against capital punishment--except, of course, in cases of rape,
where, I confess, my blood turns against me."

"An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth--that's the law of God, ain't
it?"

"The old law, yes--but why not quote the law of Christ instead?"

"It wouldn't do--not with the negroes," returned Cyrus, who entertained
for the Founder of Christianity something of the sentimental respect
mingled with an innate distrust of His common-sense with which he
regarded His disciple.

"We can't condemn it until we've tried it," said Gabriel thoughtfully,
and he went on after a moment:

"The terrible thing for us about the negroes is that they are so grave
a responsibility--so grave a responsibility. Of course, we aren't to
blame--we didn't bring them here; and yet I sometimes feel as if we had
really done so."

This was a point of view which Cyrus had never considered, and he felt
an immediate suspicion of it. It looked, somehow, as if it were
insidiously leading the way to an appeal for money.

"It's the best thing that could have happened to them," he replied
shortly. "If they'd remained in Africa, they'd never have been civilized
or--or Christianized."

"Ah, that is just where the responsibility rests on us. We stand for
civilization to them; we stand even--or at least we used to stand--for
Christianity. They haven't