While his train goes speeding on, let us learn a little of the woman whom he left years ago.

Antoinette Nermal Piedmont had been tried and excluded from her church on the charge of adultery.  She did not appear at the trial nor speak a word in her own defense.  Society dropped her as you would a poisonous viper, and she was completely ostracised.  But, conscious of her innocence and having an abiding faith in the justice of God, she moved along undisturbed by the ostracism.  The only person about whom she was concerned was Belton.

She yearned, oh! so much, to be able to present to him proofs of her chastity; but there was that white child.  But God had the matter in hand.

As the child grew, its mother noticed that its hair began to change.  She also thought she discovered his skin growing darker by degrees.  As his features developed he was seen to be the very image of Belton.  Antoinette frequently went out with him and the people began to shake their heads in doubt.  At length the child became Antoinette’s color, retaining Belton’s features.

Public sentiment was fast veering around.  Her former friends began to speak to her more kindly, and the people began to feel that she was a martyr instead of a criminal.  But the child continued to steadily grow darker and darker until he was a shade darker than his father.

The church met and rescinded its action of years ago.  Every social organization of standing elected Antoinette Nermal Piedmont an honorary member.  Society came rushing to her.  She gently smiled, but did not seek their company.  She was only concerned about Belton.  She prayed hourly for God to bring him back to her.  And now, unknown to her, he was coming.

One morning as she was sitting on her front porch enjoying the morning breeze, she looked toward the gate and saw her husband entering.  She screamed loudly, and rushed into her son’s room and dragged him out of bed.  She did not allow him time to dress, but was dragging him to the door.

Belton rushed into the house.  Antoinette did not greet him, but cried in anxious, frenzied tones:  “Belton! there is your white child!  Look at him!  Look at him!”

The boy looked up at Belton, and if ever one person favored another, this child favored him.  Belton was dazed.  He looked from child to mother and from mother to child.  By and by it began to dawn on him that that child was somehow his child.

His wife eyed him eagerly.  She rushed to her album and showed him pictures of the child taken at various stages of its growth.  Belton discerned the same features in each photograph, but a different shade of color of the skin.  His knees began to tremble.  He had come, as the most wronged of men, to grant pardon.  He now found himself the vilest of men, unfit for pardon.

A picture of all that his innocent wife had suffered came before him, and he gasped:  “O, God, what crime is this with which my soul is stained?” He put his hands before his face.