And Fannie bowed her head and went away from him in silence.

All the night long the women of the Hamilton household lay in bed and wept, clinging to each other in their grief.  But Joe did not go to sleep.  Against all their entreaties, he stayed up.  He put out the light and sat staring into the gloom with hard, burning eyes.

VI

OUTCASTS

What particularly irritated Maurice Oakley was that Berry should to the very last keep up his claim of innocence.  He reiterated it to the very moment that the train which was bearing him away pulled out of the station.  There had seldom been seen such an example of criminal hardihood, and Oakley was hardened thereby to greater severity in dealing with the convict’s wife.  He began to urge her more strongly to move, and she, dispirited and humiliated by what had come to her, looked vainly about for the way to satisfy his demands.  With her natural protector gone, she felt more weak and helpless than she had thought it possible to feel.  It was hard enough to face the world.  But to have to ask something of it was almost more than she could bear.

With the conviction of her husband the last five hundred dollars had been confiscated as belonging to the stolen money, but their former deposit remained untouched.  With this she had the means at her disposal to tide over their present days of misfortune.  It was not money she lacked, but confidence.  Some inkling of the world’s attitude towards her, guiltless though she was, reached her and made her afraid.

Her desperation, however, would not let her give way to fear, so she set forth to look for another house.  Joe and Kit saw her go as if she were starting on an expedition into a strange country.  In all their lives they had known no home save the little cottage in Oakley’s yard.  Here they had toddled as babies and played as children and been happy and care-free.  There had been times when they had complained and wanted a home off by themselves, like others whom they knew.  They had not failed, either, to draw unpleasant comparisons between their mode of life and the old plantation quarters system.  But now all this was forgotten, and there were only grief and anxiety that they must leave the place and in such a way.

Fannie went out with little hope in her heart, and a short while after she was gone Joe decided to follow her and make an attempt to get work.

“I ‘ll go an’ see what I kin do, anyway, Kit.  ’T ain’t much use, I reckon, trying to get into a bahbah shop where they shave white folks, because all the white folks are down on us.  I ’ll try one of the coloured shops.”

This was something of a condescension for Berry Hamilton’s son.  He had never yet shaved a black chin or put shears to what he termed “naps,” and he was proud of it.  He thought, though, that after the training he had received from the superior “Tonsorial Parlours” where he had been employed, he had but to ask for a place and he would be gladly accepted.