ridden away with the letter. Already there had come to her
moments when, she would have given much could she have recalled
it, when she knew with dread certainty that whatever her feeling
for Charley, it was not love; moments when she realized that she
had been cruelly driven by circumstances into a situation that
offered no escape.

"Mas'r Tom he say he won't come in to supper, Missy; he 'low he's
powerful busy, gittin' ready to go to Memphis in the mo'ning,"
explained Steve, as he followed Betty into the dining-room.

His mistress nodded indifferently as she seated herself at the
table; she was glad to be alone just then; she was in no mood to
carry on the usual sluggish conversation with Tom; her own
thoughts absorbed hermore and more they became terrifying things
to her.

She ate her supper with big Steve standing behind her chair and
little Steve balancing himself first on one foot and then on the
other near the door. Little Steve's head was on a level with the
chair rail and but for the rolling whites of his eyes he was no
more than a black shadow against the walnut wainscoting; he
formed the connecting link between the dining-room and the remote
kitchen. Betty suspected that most of the platters journeyed
down the long corridor deftly perched on top of his woolly head.
She frequently detected him with greasy or sticky fingers, which
while it argued a serious breach of trust also served to indicate
his favorite dishes. These two servitors were aware that their
mistress was laboring under some unusual stress of emotion. In
its presence big Steven, who, with the slightest encouragement,