"Do you think I could be anything else?" was the quick reply, as if forced from lips that had meant to remain silent. "Has your conduct been such as to make me like or respect you?"
The negro's eyes fell before her indignant gaze.
"No," he answered, humbly. "I expect nothing; I ask nothing. I can see my mistakes now. And yet, it would have been no different had I played the part of an angel toward you. The entire question with you was settled in advance by the fact that my skin was black."
The pressure on Weil's shoulder grew heavier, from time to time, as his companion realized his temptation to break from his covert.
"If it had been as white as any man's who ever lived," replied Daisy, boldly, "your conduct would have earned the contempt of a self-respecting person! A blackmailer, an abductor, a conspirator against the peace of mind of an old man and a young girl who never harmed you! I wonder you can talk of other reasons when you created so many by your wicked acts!"
Hannibal shrugged his shoulders.
"It is true, nevertheless," he replied. "I am a negro. In a moment of insanity I dreamed I was a Man! I dreamed I might gain for my wife a woman whose ancestors had been born in a more northerly clime than my own. To gain that end I took the only course that seemed open. I possessed myself of an influence that would make her father fear me. Well, I played and I lost—and then, like other players and losers, even white ones, I was desperate. You were to be married to another—a man I hated. Life had lost its only charm, I could not bear that you should be his bride. My torture was intense. I asked but for death."
These revelations, so novel to at least one of the listeners, smote him with terrific force.