Susan, as she told her troubles for another's healing, thought of them as past and gone. There was a fresh sorrow at her door. She asked for an afternoon's holiday, got it, and went away. She came back, ashy and shaken.

"Marse Robert," she told him, soon as he and Frances came in the hall door, "Ise gwine leab yuh."

They stood too astonished for speech.

"Ise gwine leab yuh!" The old woman steadied herself against the frame of the library door. "Bill—he's come back!"

"He has!" said the professor testily.

"An' he's sick, an' he's got no home."

"And you feel yourself called on to take care of him?"

"Who else gwine do it? Ise gwine tek him home!"

[Pg 251]

"Out there!" exclaimed Frances, in dismay, and then she asked practically. "What's the matter with him?"

"De Lawd only knows! He's jes' all crippled up, an' his— Lawd! Lawd!" The old woman broke into loud sobbing.

"Now, Susan!" comforted Frances, "don't worry; of course you want to go, and you shall."

"I done sont word to Roxie to come hyar an' cook fur you."

"I'm glad of that!" said the professor. He had little sympathy with the prodigal who only came back to be a care.

"I'll carry you both out to-morrow," declared Frances, "but don't you think you ought to go and warm the place up and get everything comfortable?"

"He ain't so bad as he was," said Susan meekly, "he been in de horsepittle a month, he said."

"And now they have discharged him, he's come down here on you!"

"Marse Robert, he said—" She stopped, knowing the flimsiness of Bill's excuses,[Pg 252] "He's de onliest chile Ise got," she added sullenly.

"All right! all right." The professor took off his hat and coat and hung them up carefully.

"I specs yuh thinks ernough o' yours!" blazed the old woman.

"There, father!" Frances laughed as she slipped her hand through his arm, "you haven't a word to say!"

The professor was cornered. "That's so!" he acknowledged, as he looked proudly at Frances' bright cheeks and eyes—not so careless as he had seen their glances, but with a sweeter thoughtfulness looking out of their dark, gray depths.

"Well, Susan, you'll come back some day, I suppose?"

"Soon as he gits well!"

"Then, if there's anything you need—"

Frances looked back over her shoulder and laughed. She had already begun to say, "Susan, you must take sheets and blankets—"

"I got plenty dyar."

"But they must be damp and musty."

[Pg 253]

"Bill says 'twas de rhumatiz," put in his mother.

"And take what you need right away out of the pantry."

"Miss Frances, if yuh'll jes' go into town an' buy me some things, Ise got plenty o' money, Marse Robert so good to me, an' he pays me my wages steady; Ise jis' been savin' 'em up. Here's ten dollars now." She felt in the folds of her turban and brought out the bill.

Frances' hands were full for many days; she had to take the old woman and Bill out to the cabin, to help straighten it, and air it, and stock it with provisions, to go out day by day at first, and then whenever she could; and to straighten out household affairs with Roxie at the helm.

"How dat Roxie doing?" asked Susan anxiously on one of Frances' visits.

Frances hesitated. "Fairly well!" she answered doubtfully.

"H'm! Ise glad I taught yuh to cook."

"So am I!" declared Frances devoutly, remembering some of her late experiences.

[Pg 254]

"Don't yuh let her gib Marse Robert sech po' vittels he'll git sick!"

"One pet at a time, Susan, is enough," teased Frances with a glance through the opened cabin door at Bill warming his "rhumatiz" limbs before a glowing fire and looking the picture of lazy comfort.

Susan turned away discomfited, but only for an instant. "Hi-yi!" she cried, "who's dat comin' down de lane? 'Fore de Lawd if 'tain't Marse Edward. I 'clar'," she went on, watching Frances' reddening cheek with satisfaction, "he suttinly has been good to us. We's been hyar nigh 'pon fo' weeks, an' ebery now an' den— Mornin', Marse Edward."

Frances walked quickly down the narrow pathway to where Starlight was fastened to the fence.

"Yuh needn't be in sech a hurry!" grumbled Susan.

"Wait!" called young Montague, who had seen the man?uvre. "I'm going into town for my mail!" he declared, soon as he flung himself from the horse; "don't you want to[Pg 255] ride Lady? Here, Susan, I shot this, this morning; you can make Bill his rabbit stew now!"

"La, Marse Edward, Bill suttinly will be glad."

"How is he? You will wait a moment?" he hurried into the cabin and out again. The valley below lay bathed in misty sunshine, the green of the grass by the stream and the red tips of the branches on bordering willow and shrub showed where the February sun shone longest and strongest. To young Montague, valley and hazy mountain peaks and the hillside cabin were a fair winter's scene, and the girl waiting there by the gray weather-worn fence was the heart of it.

"I will be ready in a moment," he declared, as with deft fingers he unbuckled the saddle-girth from his horse.

"Is there anything else Bill would like?" he questioned, as he fastened Starlight's saddle on his own horse.

Susan hesitated for a moment.

"Any game?"

[Pg 256]

"Bill, he did say," the old woman answered hesitatingly, "as how he was honing for a 'possum. Dey ain't good much now."

"But a 'possum he shall have. Are you ready?" to Frances.

He held his hand and tossed her into the saddle. "Good-by!" Frances called. "I'll be out again soon. Good-by!"

The old darkey stood watching them. "Lawd, if eber two folks was made fer one 'nother," she said to herself, "dyar dey is; Miss Frances she's jis' naturally born to rule some man in dat sassy, sweet way she got, an' Marse Edward he look lak he suttinly would lak to be dat man; but Miss Frances," the old darkey shook her head, "I don't know 'bout her, dat I don't."

Miss Frances was putting Lady through her paces, despite red clay and mire and shallow pools where the water yet stood. Heavy black clouds were shouldering above the mountain peaks; the wind was from the east and stung sharply against their faces.

"It's going to rain," declared Frances, anxiously.

[Pg 257]

"Oh, not to-day." Montague was seeing nothing of brown sodden fields or long stretch of red road; he was wondering, wondering if he dared translate to speech the wild beatings of his heart.

But the swift ride and Frances' gay speeches gave him little chance; the cloud, forming long out of sight and coming up with ominous swiftness, made fast riding imperative; the red clay splashed them from head to foot; the wind, strong and d............