siah has gone away--I may as well say, run away."

"Yes--he has gone, James." She hesitated greatly troubled.

"And you helped him--a runaway slave--you--" He smiled. It had for him an
oddly humorous aspect.

"I did--I did--" and the little lady began to sob like a child. "It
was--was wrong--" There was nothing comic in it for Ann Penhallow.

"You angel of goodness," he cried, as he caught her in his arms and held
the weeping face against his shoulder, "my brave little lady!"

"I ought not to have done it--but I did--I did--oh, James! To think that
my cousin should have brought this trouble on us--But I did--oh, James!"

"Listen, my dear. If I had been here, I should have done it. See what you
have saved me. Now sit down and let us have it all out, my dear, all of
it."

"And you really mean that?" she wailed piteously. "You won't think I did
wrong--you won't think I have made trouble for you--"

"You have not," he replied, "you have helped me. But, dear, do sit down
and just merely, as in these many years, trust my love. Now quiet
yourself and let us talk it over calmly."

"Yes--yes." She wiped her eyes. "Do smoke, James--I like it."

"Oh, you dear liar," he said. "And so it was Grey?"

She looked up. "Yes, George Grey; but, James, he did not know how much we
liked Josiah nor how good he had been to me, and how he got hurt when he
stopped Leila's pony. He was sorry--but it was too late--oh, James!--you
will not--oh, you will not--"

"Will not what, dear?" Penhallow was disgusted. A guest entertained in
his own house to become a detective of an escaped slave in Westways, at
his very gate! "My charity, Ann, hardly covers this kind of sin against
the decencies of life. But I wish to hear all of it. Now, who betrayed
the man--who told Grey?"

"I am sorry to say that it was Peter Lamb who first mentioned Josiah to
George Grey as a runaway. When he spoke of his lost fingers, George was
led to suspect who Josiah really was. Then he saw him, and as soon as he
was sure, he wrote to a Mr. Woodburn, who was Josiah's old owner."

"I suppose he recognized Josiah readily?"

"Yes, he had been a servant of George's friend, Mr. Woodburn, and George
says he was a man indulgently treated and much trusted."

"I infer from what I learned to-day that George told you all this and had
already seen Swallow, so that the trap was set and Mr. Woodburn was to
arrive. Did George imagine you would warn my poor barber--"

"But I--I