nt unto your masters!'"_ she quoted, with a
strange smile. "My words oppress you, possibly, because so many women
are speaking through my lips, the women who for generations have
thought and suffered and been doomed to silence, to bear the children
of men they hated; to have the most sacred thing of life, mother-love,
desecrated, according to the temper of their masters; to dread
bringing into the world even the children of love, lest, whether white
or black, they prove cattle for the slave market!"

"Judithe!"

He caught her hand as though to force silence on her by the strength
of his own horror and protest. She closed her eyes for an instant as
he touched her, and then drew away to leave a greater space between
them, as she said:

"All those women are back of me! I have never lived one hour out of
the shadow of their presence. Their cause is my cause, and when I
forget them, may God forget me!"

"_Your_ cause!--my wife!" he half whispered, as he dropped her hand,
and the blue eyes swept her over with a glance of horror. "Who are you
that their cause should be yours?"

"Until this morning I was Madame La Marquise de Caron," she said,
making a half mocking inclination of her head; "in the bill of sale
you read today I was named Rhoda Larue, the slave girl who--"

"No!" He caught her fiercely by the shoulder, and his face had a
murderous look as he bent above her, "don't dare to say it! You are
mad with the desire to hurt me because I resent your sympathy with the
North! But, dear, your madness has made you something more terrible
than you realize! Judithe, for God's sake, never say that word
again!"

"For God's sake, that is, for truth's sake, I am telling you the thing
that is!"

He half staggered to the table, and stood there looking at her; her
gaze met his own, and all the tragedy of love and death was in that
regard.

"_You_!" he said, as though it was impossible to believe the thing he
heard. "You--of all women! God!--it is too horrible! What right have
you to tell me now? I was happy each moment I thought you loved me;
even my anger against you was all jealousy! I was willing to forgive
even the spy work, shield you, trust you, _love_ you--but--now--"

He paused with his hand over his eyes as though to shut out the sight
of her, she was so beautiful as she stood there--so appealing. The
dark eyes were wells of sadness as she looked at him. She stood as one
waiting judgment and hoping for no mercy.