ered, had not her boy, her first-born, been carried into
her, bruised and dead,--dead, through an accident of burning rafters and
falling stones; an accident, they said; yet as really murdered as though
they had wilfully and brutally stricken him down.

"After that I saw that she, too, would die, were she not taken back to
our old home. The preparations were hastily made; we turned our faces
towards England; we hoped to reach it at least before another pair of
eyes saw the light, but hoped in vain. There on the broad sea Francesca
was born. There her mother died. There was she buried."

It was with extreme difficulty Ercildoune had controlled his face and
voice, through the last of this distressing recital, and with the final
word he bowed his forehead on the picture-frame,--convulsed with
agony,--while voiceless sobs, like spasms, shook his form. Surrey
realized that no words were to be said here, and stood by, awed and
silent. What hand, however tender, could be laid on such a wound as
this?

Presently he looked up, and continued: "I came back here, because, I
said, here was my place. I had wealth, education, a thousand advantages
which are denied the masses of people who are, like me, of mixed race. I
came here to identify my fate with theirs; to work with and for them; to
fight, till I died, against the cruel and merciless prejudice which
grinds them down. I have a son, who has just entered the service of this
country, perhaps to die under its flag. I have a daughter,"--Willie
flushed and started forward;--"I asked you when I began this recital, if
you had counted all the consequences. You know my story; you see with
what fate you link yours; reflect! Francesca carries no mark of her
birth; her father or brother could not come inside her home without
shocking society by the scandal, were not the story earlier known. The
man whom you struck down this morning is one of our neighbors; you saw
and heard his brutal assault: are you ready to face more of the like
kind? Better than you I know what sentence will be passed upon
you,--what measure awarded. It is for your own sake I say these things;
consider them. I have finished."

Surrey had made to speak a half score of times, and as often checked
himself,--partly that he should not interrupt his companion; partly that
he might be master of his emotions, and say what he had to utter without
heat or excitement.

"Mr. Ercildoune," he now said, "listen to me. I should de