Betty took the hand in hers. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "All that—the roughness—will wear off. It will be gone in a month."
"There is something there that will never wear off. Look right hard at the finger-nails."
Betty lifted the hand to her face, vaguely recalling observations of her mother when discussing suspicious looking brunettes seen in the North. There was a faint bluish stain at the base of the nails; and she remembered. It was the outward and indelible print of the hidden vein within. The nails are the last stronghold of negro blood. She dropped the hand with an uncontrollable shudder and covered her face with her muff.
"I feel so horribly sorry for you," she said hastily. "It seemed to me for the moment as if your trouble were my own."
If the girl understood, she made no sign; hers had been a life of self-control, and she had been despised from her birth.
"Tell me what you wish me to do now," said Betty, lifting her head. "When can you leave here? Do you wish me to stay with you? Is it impossible for you to go to-day?"
"I cannot leave him until he is buried. And you couldn't stay here.
This is Tuesday. I'll go Thursday."
Betty thrust a roll of bills into a drawer. "They are yours by right," she said hurriedly. "Go first to Richmond and get a handsome black frock; you will be sure to find what you want ready made, and it will be better—on account of the servants—for you to look well when you arrive. Spend it all. There is plenty more. Buy all sorts of nice things. I will go now. There is a train soon. Telegraph when you start for Washington and I will meet you. Good by, and please be sure that I shall make you happy."
Harriet walked out to the gate, and Betty saw that there were fine lines on her brow and about her mouth. But she was very beautiful, sombre and blighted as she was. She clung to Betty for a moment at parting, then went rapidly into the house.
When Betty reached the street, she restrained an impulse to run, but she walked faster than she had ever walked in her life, persuading herself that she feared to miss her train. She waited three quarters of an hour for it, and there were four dreary hours more before she saw the dome of the Capitol. She arrived at home with a splitting headache and an animal craving to lock herself in her room and get into bed. For the time being no mortal interested her, she was exhausted and emotionless. She described the interview briefly to her mother, then sought the solitude she craved. And as she was young and healthy, she soon fell asleep.