MAMMY MARIA
That Monday was a memorable day for Helen Conway. She went to the mill with less bitterness than ever before—the sting of it all was gone—for she felt that she was helpless to the fate that was hers—that she was powerless in the hands of Richard Travis:
“I will come for you Monday night. I will take you away from here. You shall belong to me forever—My Queen!”
These words had rung in her ears all Saturday night, when, after coming home, she had found her father fallen by the wayside.
In the night she had lain awake and wondered. She did not know where she was going—she did not care. She did not even blush at the thought of it. She was hardened, steeled. She knew not whether it meant wife or mistress. She knew only that, as she supposed, God had placed upon her more than she could bear.
“If my life is wrecked,” she said as she lay awake that Sunday night—“God himself will do it. Who took my mother before I knew her influence? Who made me as I am and gave me poverty with this fatal beauty—poverty and a drunken father and this terrible temptation?”
“Oh, if I only had her, Mammy—negro that she is.”
Lily was asleep with one arm around her sister's neck.