or overturning the city
government, he realized full well were no sort of justification for the
wholesale murder or other horrors which might well ensue before the day
was done. He could not approve the acts of his own people; neither could
he, to a negro, condemn them. Hence he was silent.

"Thank you, Mr. Ellis," exclaimed Miller, when they had reached the
house where he expected to find his wife. "This is the place where I was
going. I am--under a great obligation to you."

"Not at all, Dr. Miller. I need not tell you how much I regret this
deplorable affair."

Ellis went back down the street. Fastening his horse to the fence,
Miller sprang forward to find his wife and child. They would certainly
be there, for no colored woman would be foolhardy enough to venture on
the streets after the riot had broken out.

As he drew nearer, he felt a sudden apprehension. The house seemed
strangely silent and deserted. The doors were closed, and the Venetian
blinds shut tightly. Even a dog which had appeared slunk timidly back
under the house, instead of barking vociferously according to the usual
habit of his kind.

XXXIV

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

Miller knocked at the door. There was no response. He went round to the
rear of the house. The dog had slunk behind the woodpile. Miller knocked
again, at the back door, and, receiving no reply, called aloud.

"Mrs. Butler! It is I, Dr. Miller. Is my wife here?"

The slats of a near-by blind opened cautiously.

"Is it really you, Dr. Miller?"

"Yes, Mrs. Butler. I am looking for my wife and child,--are they here?"

"No, sir; she became alarmed about you, soon after the shooting
commenced, and I could not keep her. She left for home half an hour ago.
It is coming on dusk, and she and the child are so near white that she
did not expect to be molested."

"Which way did she go?"

"She meant to go by the main street. She thought it would be less
dangerous than the back streets. I tried to get her to stay here, but
she was frantic about you, and nothing I could say would keep her. Is
the riot almost over, Dr. Miller? Do you think they will murder us all,
and burn down our houses?"

"God knows," replied Miller, with a groan. "But I must find her, if I
lose my own life in the attempt."

Surely, he thought, Janet would be safe. The white people of Wellington
were not savages; or at least their temporary reversion to savagery
would not go as far as to include violenc