The ring was answered by the doctor in person.

“Dr. Miller, I believe?” asked Carteret.

“Yes, sir.”

“I am Major Carteret.  My child is seriously ill, and you are the only available doctor who can perform the necessary operation.”

“Ah!  You have tried all the others,—­and then you come to me!”

“Yes, I do not deny it,” admitted the major, biting his lip.  He had not counted on professional jealousy as an obstacle to be met.  “But I have come to you, as a physician, to engage your professional services for my child,—­my only child.  I have confidence in your skill, or I should not have come to you.  I request—­nay, I implore you to lose no more time, but come with me at once!  My child’s life is hanging by a thread, and you can save it!”

“Ah!” replied the other, “as a father whose only child’s life is in danger, you implore me, of all men in the world, to come and save it!”

There was a strained intensity in the doctor’s low voice that struck Carteret, in spite of his own pre-occupation.  He thought he heard, too, from the adjoining room, the sound of some one sobbing softly.  There was some mystery here which he could not fathom unaided.

Miller turned to the door behind him and threw it open.  On the white cover of a low cot lay a childish form in the rigidity of death, and by it knelt, with her back to the door, a woman whose shoulders were shaken by the violence of her sobs.  Absorbed in her grief, she did not turn, or give any sign that she had recognized the intrusion.

“There, Major Carteret!” exclaimed Miller, with the tragic eloquence of despair, “there lies a specimen of your handiwork!  There lies my only child, laid low by a stray bullet in this riot which you and your paper have fomented; struck down as much by your hand as though you had held the weapon with which his life was taken!”

“My God!” exclaimed Carteret, struck with horror.  “Is the child dead?”

“There he lies,” continued the other, “an innocent child,—­there he lies dead, his little life snuffed out like a candle, because you and a handful of your friends thought you must override the laws and run this town at any cost!—­and there kneels his mother, overcome by grief.  We are alone in the house.  It is not safe to leave her unattended.  My duty calls me here, by the side of my dead child and my suffering wife!  I cannot go with you.  There is a just God in heaven!—­as you have sown, so may you reap!”

Carteret possessed a narrow, but a logical mind, and except when confused or blinded by his prejudices, had always tried to be a just man.  In the agony of his own predicament,—­in the horror of the situation at Miller’s house,—­for a moment the veil of race prejudice was rent in twain, and he saw things as they were, in their correct proportions and relations,—­saw clearly and convincingly that he had no standing here, in the presence of death,