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 never unkind to our slaves, nor have we been unkind to our tenants. We have been their patrons, even to those who have risen in wealth and education beyond the station of tenant and slave conditions. I was always aloof from their condition. It did not touch me." Here Lida paused for a moment, her hands still resting on Bennet's shoulders, her eyes looking up to his, a yearning in them.

"Only recently have I begun to live and to know life—to know what life means. Just as I was beginning to learn there comes a cloud and—and—I—I—I—I'm almost lost." Tears filled her eyes but she continued bravely. "I'm almost lost. Just as I began to know what love is, they tell me something to spoil it all. They say you have slave blood in you. Tell me, Truman, is that so? Is it true that you have colored blood in you?"

"If I say it's so, what will you do?" he asked.

"I don't know, Truman—I don't know." She clung piteously to the lapel of his coat, awaiting his answer, her soul tortured with anguish. There was a stabbing pain in his heart, so sharp as to cause him to gasp for breath. Bennet wrestled with himself as he had never before, debating whether to speak truthfully and risk the loss of her love for truth or to temporize. At last the dominant character of his nature triumphed and he resolved to speak the truth.

He caught the wrists of Lida's hands as they clung to the lapel of his coat, lifted his head, as his better nature won and, gripping her wrists till they pained her, in the tensity of his emotion, he told her: