It was all good, there, to go
back to. What a little chub she used to be! Remembering, with
bitter remorse, how all his life he had meant to try and do
better, on her account, but had kept putting off and putting off
until now. And now---- Did nothing lie before him but to go back
and rot yonder? Was that the end, because he never had learned
better, and was a "dam' nigger"?
"I'll NOT leave my girl!" he muttered, going up and down,--"I'll
NOT leave my girl!"
If Holmes did sleep above him, the trial of the day, of which we
have seen nothing, came back sharper in sleep. While the strong
self in the man lay torpid, whatever holier power was in him came
out, undaunted by defeat, and unwearied, and took the form of
dreams, those slighted messengers of God, to soothe and charm and
win him out into fuller, kindlier life. Let us hope that they
did so win him; let us hope that even in that unreal world the
better nature of the man triumphed at last, and claimed its
reward before the terrible reality broke upon him.
Lois, over in the damp, fresh-smelling lumber-yard, sat coiled up
in one of the creviced houses made by the jutting boards. She
remembered how she used to play in them, before she went into the
mill. The mill,--even now, with the vague dread of some
uncertain evil to come, the mill absorbed all fear in its old
hated shadow. Whatever danger was coming to them lay in it, came
from it, she knew, in her confused, blurred way of thinking.
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