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 Both men looked at each other but said nothing. For the time they had forgotten the existence of Lida or Bennet.

"I think I'll cut my visit very short and leave for the North tonight. I'm sick of the place. It's hot—stifling hot, and the people are so different. Conditions are so different. I'm going to protect that girl—take her with me."

"You should not allow yourself to become bothered by such things, Miss Comstock," suggested Professor Armstrong. "They're ordinary and common down here. In fact, so common that we take them as a matter of course and turn our minds to more serious things. I wouldn't let that bother me."

"Well, it does," she asserted. "I've changed my mind on a lot of things since I came South. I know a lot I never knew till now and I'm disgusted. That was a horrid thing for that man to do.—And to think the judge let him off with a fine after almost condoning the offense."

"It's a common occurrence," offered Professor Armstrong. "I admit, though, that this case comes pretty near home to me. I know the girl and her family."

"And you permit such a thing. I'm both ashamed and surprised. Where's the white womanhood of the South that it tolerates such things. I heard the whole sordid affair. I was in an adjoining room when the girl came to gather laundry for her mother.

"You should have heard her pleading with that brute." Miss Comstock's eyes filled with tears. "It was enough to