ot taking Helen that morning.

She threw herself against the door. It was strong and secure.

Jud met it with a jeering laugh.

"Oh, you're safe an' you'll never see her agin. I don't mind tellin'
you she has run off with Richard Travis--they'll go North to-night.
You'll find other folks can walk off with yo' gals--'specially the
han'sum ones--besides yo'se'f."

The old nurse was stricken with weakness. Her limbs shook so she sat
down in a heap at the door and said pleadingly:--"Are you lyin' to
me, white man? Will--will he marry her or--"

"Did you ever hear of him marryin' anybody?" came back with a laugh.
"No, he's only took a deserted young 'oman in out of the cold--he'll
take care of her, but he ain't the marryin' kind, is he?"

The reputation of Richard Travis was as well known to Mammy Maria as
it was to anyone. She did not know whether to believe Jud or not, but
one thing she knew--something--something dreadful was happening to
Helen. The old nurse called to mind instantly things that had
happened before she herself had left Millwood--things Helen had
said--her grief, her despair, her horror of the mill, her belief that
she was already disgraced. It all came to the old nurse now so
plainly. Tempted as she was, young as she was, deserted and forsaken
as she thought she was, might not indeed the temptation be too much
for her?

She groaned as she heard Jud laugh and walk off.

"O my baby, my beautiful baby!" she wept, falling on her knees again.

The mill grew strangely silent and dark. On a pile of loose cotton
she fell, praying after the manner of her race.

An hour passed. The darkness, the loneliness, the horror of it all
crept into her superstitious soul, and she became frantic with
religious fervor and despair.

Pacing the room, she sang and prayed in a frenzy of emotional tumult.
But she heard only the echo of her own voice, and only the wailings
of her own songs came back. Negro that she was, she was intelligent
enough to know that Jud Carpenter spoke the truth--that not for his
life would he have dared to say this if it had not had some truth in
it. What?--she did not know--she only knew that harm was coming to
Helen.

She called aloud for help--for Edward Conway. But the mill was closed
tight--the windows nailed.

Another hour passed. It began to tell on the old creature's mind.
Negroes are simple, religious, superstitious folks, easily unbalanced
by grief or wrong.

She began to see v