after the Red Admiral in the
fields beyond the river swamp. No, she reflected appraisingly, he
had not changed. He had somehow managed to retain a certain quality
of childlikeness that made her feel as if she were looking through
crystal. She was grateful that no contact had been able to blunt it,
that it remained undimmed and serene.

Briefly and rather baldly Peter outlined his years of struggle,
dismissing their bleak hardships with a tolerant smile. What he
seemed chiefly to remember was the underlying kindness and good
humor of the folk back there in Riverton; if they had ever failed to
be kind, it was because they hadn't understood, he thought. There
was no resentment in him. Why, they were his own folks! His mother's
grave was one of their graves, his name one of their names, their
traditions and heritages were part and parcel of himself. The
tide-water was in his blood; his flesh was dust of the South
Carolina coast.

She saw that, while he was speaking. And against the vivid, colorful
coast background she caught haunting glimpses of a tireless small
figure toiling, sweating, always moving toward a far-off goal as
with the inevitable directness of a fixed law. She marveled at the
patience of his strength, and she loved his gentleness, his
sweetness that had a flavor of other-worldliness in it.

He was telling her now of Chadwick Champneys and how his coming had
changed things. But of the price he had had to pay he said nothing.
He tried not to think of the bride his uncle had forced upon him,
though her narrowed eyes, her red hair, her mouth set in a hard red
line haunted him like a nightmare. His soul revolted against such a
mockery of marriage. He could imagine his mother's horror, and he
was glad Maria Champneys slept beside the husband of her youth in
the cemetery beside the Riverton Road. She wouldn't have asked him
to pay such a price, not for all the Champneyses dead and gone! But
Chadwick Champneys had held him to his bargain, had forced him to
give his name, his father's name, of which his mother had been so
proud.

Peter smarted with humiliation. It was as if he had been bought and
sold, and he writhed under the disgrace of such bondage. He felt the
helpless anger of one who realizes he has been shamefully swindled,
yet is powerless to redress his injury; and what added insult to
injury was that a Champneys, his father's brother, had inflicted it.

Yet he had no faintest notion of breaking or e