He nodded, smiling. "Don't you remember we talked about faith, and how to get hold of it? And I said I couldn't find it? Well, I have no apologies and no explanations. All I have to say is that I fought it out, threshed it all over, and then somehow, I don't know how,—well, faith came to me,—that is all. I waked up one night, and I—well, I just knew. That is all. Then I knew I had been wrong."
"And it cost you everything."
"Just about everything in the world, I reckon, so far as worldly goods go. I suppose you know what you and your little colonization scheme have done to me?"
"But you—what do you mean?"
"Why, didn't you know that? Weren't Carlisle and Kammerer your agents; and didn't Lily, our late disappearing slave and also late lecturing fugitive yonder, represent them? Don't you really know about that?"
"No, I had nothing to do with their operations."
"Do you mean to tell me that it was—Oh, I am glad you do not know about it," he said soberly, "although I don't understand that part of it."
"Won't you explain?" she besought him.
"Now, the truth is—and that is the main reason of all this popular feeling against me here—that Lily, or these men, or people like them, took away every solitary negro from my plantation, as well as from two or three others neighboring me! They didn't stop to buy my property—they just took it! You see, Madam,"—he smiled rather grimly,—"these northern abolitionists remain in the belief that they have all the virtue and all the fair dealing in the world. It has been a little hard on my cotton crop. I will not have any crop this fall. I had no labor. I will not have any crop next summer. With money at twelve per cent. and no munificent state salary coming in,—that means rather more than I care to talk about."
"And it was I—I who did that for you! Believe, believe me, I was wholly innocent of it! I did not know!—I did not! I did not! I would not have done that to my worst enemy!"