ut she could see Judithe's,
and it was uplifted and slightly smiling.

"Have you found something mutually interesting?" she asked, glancing
at the book open on Judithe's knee.

"Yes; a child's story," returned her guest, and then the door closed,
and the two were again alone.

"There is a woman to be loved and honored, if one could only forget
the sort of son she has trained," remarked Judithe, thoughtfully,
"with my heart I love her, but with my reason I condemn her. Can you
comprehend that, Monsieur Loring? I presume not, as you do not
interest yourself with hearts."

He was still staring at her like a man in a frightened dream; she
could see the perspiration standing on his forehead; his lips were
twitching horribly.

"You understand, of course," she said, continuing her former
discussion, "that the daughter in the story is not the lovely lady who
is your heiress, and who is called Miss Loring. It is a younger
daughter I refer to; she had no surname, because masters do not marry
slaves, and her mother was a half Greek octoroon from Florida; her
name was Retta Lacaris, and your brother promised her the freedom she
never received until death granted her what you could not keep from
her; do you remember that mother and child, Monsieur Loring?--the
mother who went mad and died, and the child whom you sold to Kenneth
McVeigh?--sold as a slave for his bachelor establishment; a slave who
would look like a white girl, whom you contracted should have the
accomplishments of a white girl, but without a white girl's
inconvenient independence, and the power of disposing of herself."

"You--you dare to tell me!--you--" He was choking with rage, but she
raised her hand for silence, and continued in the same quiet tone:

"I have discussed the same affair in the salons of Paris--why not to
you? It was in Paris your good friend, Monsieur Larue, placed the girl
for the education Kenneth McVeigh paid for. It was also your friend
who bribed her to industry by a suggestion that she might gain freedom
if her accomplishments warranted it. But you had forgotten, Matthew
Loring, that the child of your brother had generations of white
blood--of intellectual ancestry back of her. She had heard before
leaving your shores the sort of freedom she was intended for, and your
school was not a prison strong enough to hold her. She escaped, fled
into the country, hid like a criminal in the day, and walked alone at
night through an unknown coun