Mary Cresswell walked slowly on, flushing and paling by turns. Could it be that this Negro had dared to misunderstand her‚ÅÝ‚Äîhad presumed? She reviewed her conduct. Perhaps she had been indiscreet in thus making a confidant of him in her trouble. She had thought of him as a boy‚ÅÝ‚Äîan old student, a sort of confidential servant; but what had he thought? She remembered Miss Smith‚Äôs warning of years before‚ÅÝ‚Äîand he had been North since and acquired Northern notions of freedom and equality. She bit her lip cruelly.
Yet, she mused, she was herself to blame. She had unwittingly made the intimacy and he was but a Negro, looking on every white woman as a goddess and ready to fawn at the slightest encouragement.
There had been no one else here to confide in. She could not tell Miss Smith her troubles, although she knew Miss Smith must suspect. Harry Cresswell, apparently, had written nothing home of their quarrel. All the neighbors behaved as if her excuse of ill-health were sufficient to account for her return South to escape the rigors of a Northern winter. Alwyn, and Alwyn alone, really knew.
Well, it was her blindness, and she must right it quietly and quickly with hard ruthless plainness. She blushed again at the shame of it; then she began to excuse.
After all, which was worse‚ÅÝ‚Äîa Cresswell or an Alwyn? It was no sin that Alwyn had done; it was simply ignorant presumption, and she must correct him firmly, but gently, like a child. What a crazy muddle the world was! She thought of Harry Cresswell and the tale he told her in the swamp. She thought of the flitting ghosts that awful night in Washington. She thought of Miss Wynn who had jilted Alwyn and given her herself a very bad quarter of an hour. What a world it was, and after all how far was this black boy wrong? Just then Colonel Cresswell rode up behind and greeted her.