The doctor came to see me the next day, and my heart beat quicker as he entered.  I never had seen the old man tread with so majestic a step.  He seated himself and looked at me with withering scorn.  My children had learned to be afraid of him.  The little one would shut her eyes and hide her face on my shoulder whenever she saw him; and Benny, who was now nearly five years old, often inquired, “What makes that bad man come here so many times?  Does he want to hurt us?” I would clasp the dear boy in my arms, trusting that he would be free before he was old enough to solve the problem.  And now, as the doctor sat there so grim and silent, the child left his play and came and nestled up by me.  At last my tormentor spoke.  “So you are left in disgust, are you?” said he.  “It is no more than I expected.  You remember I told you years ago that you would be treated so.  So he is tired of you?  Ha! ha! ha!  The virtuous madam don’t like to hear about it, does she?  Ha! ha! ha!” There was a sting in his calling me virtuous madam.  I no longer had the power of answering him as I had formerly done.  He continued:  “So it seems you are trying to get up another intrigue.  Your new paramour came to me, and offered to buy you; but you may be assured you will not succeed.  You are mine; and you shall be mine for life.  There lives no human being that can take you out of slavery.  I would have done it; but you rejected my kind offer.”

I told him I did not wish to get up any intrigue; that I had never seen the man who offered to buy me.

“Do you tell me I lie?” exclaimed he, dragging me from my chair.  “Will you say again that you never saw that man?”

I answered, “I do say so.”

He clinched my arm with a volley of oaths.  Ben began to scream, and I told him to go to his grandmother.

“Don’t you stir a step, you little wretch!” said he.  The child drew nearer to me, and put his arms round me, as if he wanted to protect me.  This was too much for my enraged master.  He caught him up and hurled him across the room.  I thought he was dead, and rushed towards him to take him up.

“Not yet!” exclaimed the doctor.  “Let him lie there till he comes to.”

“Let me go!  Let me go!” I screamed, “or I will raise the whole house.”  I struggled and got away; but he clinched me again.  Somebody opened the door, and he released me.  I picked up my insensible child, and when I turned my tormentor was gone.  Anxiously, I bent over the little form, so pale and still; and when the brown eyes at last opened, I don’t know whether I was very happy.  All the doctor’s former persecutions were renewed.  He came morning, noon, and night.  No jealous lover ever watched a rival more closely than he watched me and the unknown slaveholder, with whom he accused me of wishing to get up an intrigue.  When my grandmother was out of the way he searched every room to find him.