"He isn't putting it out, as you call it! He has told no one, so
far as I know," said Betty quickly. Mr. Ware fell into a
brooding silence. "Of course, Charley wouldn't mention my name
in any such connection!" continued Betty.

"Who cares how often he comes here? You don't, and I don't.
There's more back of this than Charley would want you to know. I
reckon he's got his enemies; some one's had a grudge against him
and taken this way to settle it." The planter's tone and manner
were charged with an unpleasant significance.

"I don't like your hints, Tom," said Betty. Her heightened color
and the light in her eyes warned Tom that he had said enough. In
some haste he finished his second cup of tea, a beverage which he
despised, and after a desultory remark or two, withdrew to his
office.

Betty went up-stairs to her own room, where she tried to finish a
letter she had begun the day before to Judith Ferris, but she was
in no mood for this. She was owning to a sense of utter
depression and she had been at home less than a month. Struggle
as she might against the feeling, it was borne in upon her that
she was wretchedly lonely. She had seated herself by an open
window. Now, resting her elbows on the ledge and with her chin
between her palms, she gazed off into the still night. A mile
distant, on what was called "Shanty Hill," were the quarters of
the slaves. The only lights she saw were there, the only sounds
she heard reached her across the intervening fields. This was
her world. A half-savage world with its uncouth army of black