annot destroy our Southern
hospitality. There are so many carpet-baggers and other social vermin
creeping into the South, with the Yankees trying to force the niggers
on us, that it's a genuine pleasure to get acquainted with another real
Southern gentleman, whom one can invite into one's house without fear
of contamination, and before whom one can express his feelings freely
and be sure of perfect sympathy."

XIII

AN INJUDICIOUS PAYMENT

When Judge Straight's visitors had departed, he took up the papers
which had been laid loosely on the table as they were taken out of
Tryon's breast-pocket, and commenced their perusal. There was a note
for five hundred dollars, many years overdue, but not yet outlawed by
lapse of time; a contract covering the transaction out of which the
note had grown; and several letters and copies of letters modifying the
terms of the contract. The judge had glanced over most of the papers,
and was getting well into the merits of the case, when he unfolded a
letter which read as follows:--

MY DEAREST GEORGE,--I am going away for about a week, to visit the
bedside of an old friend, who is very ill, and may not live. Do not be
alarmed about me, for I shall very likely be back by the time you are.

Yours lovingly,
ROWENA WARWICK.

The judge was unable to connect this letter with the transaction which
formed the subject of his examination. Age had dimmed his perceptions
somewhat, and it was not until he had finished the letter, and read it
over again, and noted the signature at the bottom a second time, that
he perceived that the writing was in a woman's hand, that the ink was
comparatively fresh, and that the letter was dated only a couple of
days before. While he still held the sheet in his hand, it dawned upon
him slowly that he held also one of the links in a chain of possible
tragedy which he himself, he became uncomfortably aware, had had a hand
in forging.

"It is the Walden woman's daughter, as sure as fate! Her name is Rena.
Her brother goes by the name of Warwick. She has come to visit her
sick mother. My young client, Green's relation, is her lover--is
engaged to marry her--is in town, and is likely to meet her!"

The judge was so absorbed in the situation thus suggested that he laid
the papers down and pondered for a moment the curious problem involved.
He was quite aware that two races had not dwelt together, side by side,
f