As Mr. Churchill left the house, Bedney accompanied him to the gate.  When he returned, the door was locked.  In vain he demanded admittance; in vain tried the windows; every entrance was securely barred, and though he heard Dyce moving about within, she deigned no answer to his earnest pleadings, his vehement expostulations, or his fierce threats of summary vengeance.  The remainder of that night was spent by Pilot and his irate master in the great hay bin of the “Elm Bluff” stables.  When the sun rose next morning, Bedney rushed wrathful as Achilles, to resent his wrongs.  The door of his house stood open; a fire glowed on the well swept hearth, where a pot of boiling coffee and a plate of biscuit welcomed him; but Dyce was nowhere visible, and a vigorous search soon convinced him she had left home on some pressing errand.

Two hours later, Mrs. Singleton opened the door of the small room adjoining her own bedchamber, to which she had insisted upon removing the prisoner.

Beryl stood leaning against the barred window, and did not even turn her head.

“Here is a negro woman, begging to see you for a few moments.  She says she is an old family servant of General Darrington’s.”

Standing with her back toward the door, the prisoner put out one hand with a repellent gesture: 

“I have surely suffered enough from General Darrington and his friends; and I will see nobody connected with that fatal place, which has been a curse to me.”

“Just as you please; but old Auntie here, says she nursed your mother, and on that account wants to see you.”

Without waiting for permission, Dyce darted past the warden’s wife, into the room, and almost before Beryl was aware of her presence, stood beside her.

“Are you Miss Ellie’s daughter?”

Listlessly the girl turned and looked at her, and Dyce threw her arms around her slender waist, and falling on her knees hid her face in Beryl’s dress, sobbing passionately.  In the violence of her emotion, she rocked back and forth, swaying like a reed in some fierce blast the tall form, to whom she clung.

“Oh, my lovely! my lovely!  To think you should be shut up here!  To see Miss Ellie’s baby jailed, among the off-scourings of the earth!  Oh, you beautiful white deer! tracked and tore to pieces by wolves, and hounds, and jackalls!  Oh, honey!  Just look straight at me, like you was facing your accusers before the bar of God, and tell me you didn’t kill your grandpa.  Tell me you never dipped your pretty hands in ole Marster’s blood.”

Tears were streaming down Dyce’s cheeks.

“If you knew my mother, how can you think it possible her child could commit an awful crime?”

“Oh, God knows—­I don’t know what to think!  ’Peers to me the world is turned upside down.  You see, honey, you are half and half; and while I am perfectly shore of Miss Ellie’s half of you, ’cause I can always swear to our side, the Darrington in you, I can’t testify about your pa’s side; he was a—­a—­”