ie's child--the
mulatto girl. She's a nurse now, and I asked to have her come and attend
you."

"Oh," he said, "oh--" He looked at the girl curiously. "Come here." He
peered into her white young face. "Do you know me?"

The girl shrank away from him.

"Yes, sir."

"What do you do?"

"I teach and nurse at the school."

"Good! Well, I'm going to give you some money--do you know why?"

A flash of self-consciousness passed over the girl's face; she looked at
him with her wide blue eyes.

"Yes, Grandfather," she faltered.

Mrs. Cresswell rose to her feet; but the old man slowly dropped the
girl's hand and lay back in his chair, with lips half smiling.
"Grandfather," he repeated softly. He closed his eyes a space and then
opened them. A tremor shivered in his limbs as he stared darkly at the
swamp.

"Hark!" he cried harshly. "Do you hear the bodies creaking on the limbs?
It's Rob and Johnson. I did it--I--"

Suddenly he rose and stood erect and his wild eyes stricken with death
stared full upon Emma. Slowly and thickly he spoke, working his
trembling hands.

"Nell--Nell! Is it you, little wife, come back to accuse me? Ah, Nell,
don't shrink! I know--I have sinned against the light and the blood of
your poor black people is red on these old hands. No, don't put your
clean white hands upon me, Nell, till I wash mine. I'll do it, Nell;
I'll atone. I'm a Cresswell yet, Nell, a Cresswell and a gen--" He
swayed. Vainly he struggled for the word. The shudder of death shook his
soul, and he passed.

A week after the funeral of Colonel Cresswell, John Taylor drove out to
the school and was closeted with Miss Smith. His sister, installed once
again for a few days in her old room at the school, understood that he
was conferring about Emma's legacy, and she was glad. She was more and
more convinced that the marriage of Emma and Bles was the best possible
solution of many difficulties. She had asked Emma once if she liked
Bles, and Emma had replied in her innocent way,

"Oh, so much."

As for Bles, he was often saying what a dear child Emma was. Neither
perhaps realized yet that this was love, but it needed, Mrs. Cresswell
was sure, only the lightning-flash, and they would know. And who could
furnish that illumination better than Zora, the calm, methodical Zora,
who knew them so well?

As for herself, once she had accomplished the marriage and paid the
mortgage on the school out of her legacy, she would go abroad an