it. And so now Melanctha, I always be your friend, if you need me, and
now we never see each other any more to talk to."

And then Jeff Campbell thought and thought, and he could never make
any way for him now, to see it different, and so at last he sent this
letter to Melanctha.

And now surely it was all over in Jeff Campbell. Surely now he never
any more could know Melanctha. And yet, perhaps Melanctha really loved
him. And then she would know how much it hurt him never any more, any
way, to see her, and perhaps she would write a line to tell him.
But that was a foolish way for Jeff ever to be thinking. Of course
Melanctha never would write a word to him. It was all over now for
always, everything between them, and Jeff felt it a real relief to
him.

For many days now Jeff Campbell only felt it as a relief in him. Jeff
was all locked up and quiet now inside him. It was all settling down
heavy in him, and these days when it was sinking so deep in him, it
was only the rest and quiet of not fighting that he could really feel
inside him. Jeff Campbell could not think now, or feel anything else
in him. He had no beauty nor any goodness to see around him. It was a
dull, pleasant kind of quiet he now had inside him. Jeff almost began
to love this dull quiet in him, for it was more nearly being free for
him than anything he had known in him since Melanctha Herbert first
had moved him. He did not find it a real rest yet for him, he had
not really conquered what had been working so long in him, he had not
learned to see beauty and real goodness yet in what had happened to
him, but it was rest even if he was sodden now all through him. Jeff
Campbell liked it very well, not to have fighting always going on
inside him.

And so Jeff went on every day, and he was quiet, and he began again to
watch himself in his working; and he did not see any beauty now around
him, and it was dull and heavy always now inside him, and yet he was
content to have gone so far in keeping steady to what he knew was the
right way for him to come back to, to be regular, and see beauty in
every kind of quiet way of living, the way he had always wanted it for
himself and for all the colored people. He knew he had lost the sense
he once had of joy all through him, but he could work, and perhaps he
would bring some real belief back into him about the beauty that he
could not now any more see around him.

And so Jeff Campbell went on with his working,