As Keith was riding away, old Lewis, muttering softly to himself and groaning, turned towards the house.
“Where are you going?” Helen called out, as she still lingered beside Carson.
“I'm gwine try to keep Linda fum hearin' it right now,” he said. “Ef Pete git in it, missy, it gwine ter kill yo' old mammy.”
“I'm afraid it will,” Helen said. “Do what you can, Uncle Lewis. I'll be down to see her in a moment.” As the old man tottered away, Helen looked up and caught Carson's troubled glance.
“I wish I were a man,” she said.
“Why?” he inquired.
“Because I'd take a strong stand here in the South for law and order at any cost. We have a good example in this very thing of what our condition means. Pete may be innocent, and no doubt is, for I don't believe he would do a thing like that no matter what the provocation, and yet he hasn't any sort of chance to prove it.”
“You are right,” Carson said. “At such a time they would lynch him, if for nothing else than that he had dared to threaten the murdered man.”
“Poor, poor old mammy!” sighed Helen. “Oh, it is awful to think of what she will suffer if—if—Carson, do you really think Pete is in actual danger?” Dwight hesitated for a moment, and then he met her stare frankly.
“We may as well face the truth and be done with it,” he said. “No negro will be safe over there now, and Pete, I am sorry to say, least of all.”