Her glance fell on the other letter and she opened it with heavy fingers. It read:—
Mis Betty,—Marse Jack done shot himself. He tole me not to telegraf.
Yours truly,
JIM.
Betty stood staring at Senator North as he read Jack's letter. When he had finished it, she handed him the other. He read it, then took her cold hands in his.
"You must tell her," he said. "It is a terrible trial for you, but you must do it."
"Ah!" she cried sharply. "I believe you are thinking of me only, not of that poor girl."
"My dear," he said, "that poor creature was doomed the moment she entered the world. No amount of sympathy, no amount of help that you or I could give her would alter her fate one jot. For all the women of that accursed cross of black and white there is absolutely no hope—so long as they live in this country, at all events. They almost invariably have intelligence. If they marry negroes, they are humiliated. If they pin their faith to the white man, they become outcasts among the respectable Blacks by their own act, as the act of others has made them outcasts among the Whites, Their one compensation is the inordinate conceit which most of them possess. Do not think I am heartless. I have thought long and deeply on the subject. But no legislation can reach them, and the American character will have to be born again before there is any change in the social law. It is one of those terrible facts of life that rise isolated above the so-called problems. If Harriet lives through this, she will fall upon other miseries incidental to her breed, as sure as there is life about us, for she has the seeds of many crops within her. So it is true that all my concern is for you. In a way I helped to bring this on you; but you did what was right, and I have no regrets. And you must think of me as always beside you, not only ready to help you, but thinking of you constantly."
She forgot Harriet for the moment. "Oh, I do," she said, "I do! I wonder what strength I would have had through this if you had not been behind me."
"You are capable of a great deal, but no woman is strong enough to stand alone long. Send for Harriet to come here. I don't wish you to be alone with her when she hears this news."
Betty rang the bell, and sent a servant for Harriet. She put Emory's letter in her pocket.
"I shall not give her that terrible message of his until she quite has got over the shock of his death," she said. "Let her be his widow for a little while. Then she can go to Europe and resume her own name. She soon will be forgotten here."