What to do next was the question, which Tom Hardy, as cold and unfeeling as himself, answered for him.

"You are in an awful mess," he wrote, "and the only course I see is to keep them supplied with money, and let things run until they come to a focus, as I suppose they must, though they may not. Florida is a long ways from Massachusetts. Few Northerners ever go to Enterprise, and if they do they may not hear of the clearing and its inmates. The girl is not over-bright. I beg your pardon, but she isn't, and will be apt to be quiet when she makes up her mind that she is deserted. The only one you have to fear is that nigger, Jake; but I reckon we can manage him; so cheer up and never make such an infernal fool of yourself again."

Something in this letter had grated on the Colonel's feelings—the reference to the girl, perhaps—but he had decided to follow Tom's advice, and let things run until they came to a focus. They had run pretty smoothly for three years, and only a few letters, forwarded by his friend who now lived in Palatka, and kept a kind of oversight of the clearing, came to trouble him. These he always burned, but he could not forget, and the past was always with him, not exactly as it was on the night after his lawn-party, when it seemed to him that all the powers of the bottomless pit had united against him, and if ever a man expiated his wrong-doing in remorse and mental pain he was doing it. The laudations of the crowd which had cheered him so lustily were of no account, nor the honor conferred by giving the town his name. Nothing helped him as he stood with the sweat rolling down his face, and looked out upon his handsome grounds, which he did not see because of the palmetto clearing, and the little child, and the young mother on whose grave the moon was shining. Mandy Ann's curse was surely taking effect, for no sleep came to him that night, and the next day found him worn and pale, and when Peter, sure of a malarious attack worse than usual, ventured to offer his cholagogue and quinine, he was sworn at, and told to take himself off with his infernal drugs.

"I am tired with yesterday's mob. I shall be better when I am rested, and get the taste out of my mouth of Tom, Dick, and Harry tramping over the premises," he thought.

This was not very complimentary to the Tom's, and Dick's, and Harry's who had tramped through his grounds, but they did not know his thoughts, and were full of the lawn-party, and the new school-house, the work on which was commenced early in August, when a large number of men appeared, and were superintended and urged on by the Colonel himself. He did not work, but he was there every day, issuing orders and making suggestions, and in this way managing to dissipate in part the cloud always hanging over him, and which before long was to assume a form which he could not escape.

CHAPTER VIII
THE CHILD OF THE CLEARING

The school-house was finished, and was a model of comfort and convenience. It was well lighted and ventilated, and every child of whatever age could touch its feet to the floor. If it were in any sense expiatory, it had proven a success, for the palmetto clearing did not haunt the Colonel as it had done on the day of the lawn-party. It was a long time since he had heard from there, and he was beginning to wonder if anything had happened, when Peter brought him an odd-looking letter, directed wrong side up, written with a pencil, and having about it a faint perfume of very bad tobacco. It was addressed to "Mr. Kurnal Krompton, Troutberg, Mass." The writer evidently did not know of the recent change of name, and the letter had been long on the way, but had reached its destination at last, and was soiled and worn, and very second-class in its appearance, Peter decided, as he took it from the office and studied it carefully. No such missive had, to his knowledge, ever before found its way into the aristocratic precincts of Crompton Place. If it had he had not seen it, and he wondered who could have sent this one. He found his master taking his breakfast, and, holding the letter between his thumb and fingers, as if there were contamination in its touch, he handed it to him.

"Fairly turned speckled when he looked at it," Peter thought, as he left the room. "Wish I had seen where it was mailed."

An hour later, Jane, the housemaid, came to him and said, "The Colonel wants you."

Peter found him in his bedroom, packing a satchel with a shaking hand and a face more speckled than it had been when he read the letter.