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 Before he could utter a word she swung her hand to his face with a resounding smack. "Take that, you insulting wretch." Marley clapped his hand to the reddening spot on his face and looked at the girl in blank surprise for a moment. In that instant Lida turned and started back for the house, realizing that to go to the cave which had been her secret place of comfort for years would be to disclose it.

As soon as Marley recovered he bounded to her side biting his lips to control his anger.

"You'll not marry me, eh—I insult you, eh? Well, you'll never marry anyone else much less your white nigger and if he comes down here we'll kill him—and you too." When Lida looked at him too indignant for words, he continued: "I know all about it. I've been told. I'll not let you out of my sight."

With her eyes blazing as with anger of an Amazon, Lida faced him and pointed down the road and across the fields to the Marley home. Neither said a word. Her lips were drawn across her teeth in such tensity of emotion as to make them bloodlessly white. Marley could withstand the gaze no longer. He turned and walked away. Lida returned to the house and her room. She fervently wished for some way to escape.

Both she and her father seemed to avoid each other for the next few days, though at night she could hear Colonel Lauriston pacing the floor of his room or the veranda till far into the night. Each time she attempted to walk about the place she soon discovered that Marley was on hand