“I was lookin’ erbout foh you, honey,” she said reassuringly.  “I di’n’ know where you was, en den I remembah you come off down heah.  Let Aunt Dolcey finish up dat cheese.”

“What—­what started him?” asked Annie piteously.

“I doan’ jes’ know—­sound’ like one de big team di’n’ go inter his right stall, er som’n like dat.  It’s always som’n triflin’, en no ‘count.  But land, he’ll be ovah it come night.  Doan’ look so white en skeer, chile.”

“But—­but I been thinking—­what if he might turn on me—­what if he’d strike me?  Aunt Dolcey—­did he ever strike you?”

“Oncet.”

“Oh, Aunt Dolcey, what did you do?”

Something flared in Aunt Dolcey’s eyes that was as old as her race.  She looked past Annie as if she saw something she rather relished; just so her ancestors must have looked when they were dancing before a bloodstained Congo fetish.

“You see dat big white scar on Marse Wes’ lef’ wris’?  When he struck me I mahk him dere wid my hot flatiron.  Am’ no man eveh gwine lif’ his hand to Dolcey, no matter who.”

A shrewd question came to Annie: 

“Aunt Dolcey, did he ever strike you again?”

“No, ma’am, no ‘ndeedy, he didn’.  Wil’ Marse Wes may be, but he ain’ no crazy man.  It’s dat ole debbil in his nature, Miss Annie, honey.  En ef ever once som’n tremenjus happen to Marse Wes, dat debbil’ll be cas’ out.  But hit’s got to be stronger en mo’ pow’ful dan he is.  Not ’ligion, fer ’ligion goes f’m de outside in.  Som’n got to come from inside Marse Wes out befo’ dat ole debbil is laid.”

This was meagre comfort, and Annie did not follow the primitive psychology of it.  She only knew that into her happiness there had come again the darkening of a fear, fear that was to be her devil, no less terrible because his presence was for the most part veiled.

But again she steeled her courage.  “I won’t let him spoil everything; I won’t let him make me afraid of him,” she vowed, seeing Wes in his silent mood that night.  “I won’t be afraid of him.  I wish I could cut that old vein out of his forehead.  I hate it—­it’s just as if it was the thing that starts him.  Never seems as if it was part of the real Wes, my Wes.”

In the depths of the woods, on Sunday, she stood by while he dug up the wild clematis—­stood so he could not see her lips quiver—­and she put her clenched hands behind her for fear they, too, would betray her.

“Wes,” she asked, “what made you get so mad last Thursday and beat old Pomp so?”

He turned toward her in genuine surprise.

“I wasn’t mad; not much, that is.  And all I laid on Pomp’s tough old hide couldn’t hurt him.  He’s as mean as a mule, that old scoundrel.  Gets me riled every once in a while.”

“I wish you wouldn’t ever do it again.  It scared me almost to death.”

“Scared you!” he laughed.  “Oh, Annie, you little silly—­you aren’t scared of me.  Now don’t let on you are.  What you doing—­trying to kid me?  There, ain’t that a splendid plant?  I believe I’ll take back a couple shovelfuls this rich wood earth to put in under it.  It’ll never know it’s not at home.”