That night he rose at midnight and put on his clothes, then said to her: 

“Get up and dress!”

She obeyed—­as always, without a word.  He led her half a mile from the house, and proceeded to lash her to a tree by the side of the public road; and succeeded, she screaming and struggling.  He gagged her then, struck her across the face with his cowhide, and set his bloodhounds on her.  They tore the clothes off her, and she was naked.  He called the dogs off, and said: 

“You will be found—­by the passing public.  They will be dropping along about three hours from now, and will spread the news—­do you hear?  Good-by.  You have seen the last of me.”

He went away then.  She moaned to herself: 

“I shall bear a child—­to him!  God grant it may be a boy!”

The farmers released her by and by—­and spread the news, which was natural.  They raised the country with lynching intentions, but the bird had flown.  The young wife shut herself up in her father’s house; he shut himself up with her, and thenceforth would see no one.  His pride was broken, and his heart; so he wasted away, day by day, and even his daughter rejoiced when death relieved him.

Then she sold the estate and disappeared.

II

In 1886 a young woman was living in a modest house near a secluded New England village, with no company but a little boy about five years old.  She did her own work, she discouraged acquaintanceships, and had none.  The butcher, the baker, and the others that served her could tell the villagers nothing about her further than that her name was Stillman, and that she called the child Archy.  Whence she came they had not been able to find out, but they said she talked like a Southerner.  The child had no playmates and no comrade, and no teacher but the mother.  She taught him diligently and intelligently, and was satisfied with the results —­even a little proud of them.  One day Archy said: 

“Mamma, am I different from other children?”

“Well, I suppose not.  Why?”

“There was a child going along out there and asked me if the postman had been by and I said yes, and she said how long since I saw him and I said I hadn’t seen him at all, and she said how did I know he’d been by, then, and I said because I smelt his track on the sidewalk, and she said I was a dum fool and made a mouth at me.  What did she do that for?”

The young woman turned white, and said to herself, “It’s a birth mark!  The gift of the bloodhound is in him.”  She snatched the boy to her breast and hugged him passionately, saying, “God has appointed the way!” Her eyes were burning with a fierce light, and her breath came short and quick with excitement.  She said to herself:  “The puzzle is solved now; many a time it has been a mystery to me, the impossible things the child has done in the dark, but it is all clear to me now.”