She only saw that the prejudice-blinded
eyes had led a good, kind heart to endorse and excuse cruelty and
outrage. The letter saddened but did not enrage her. She saw and
pitied the pride of the sick lady whom she had learned to love in
fancy too well to regard with anger on account of what was but the
natural result of her life and training.
CHAPTER XLIV.
PUTTING THIS AND THAT TOGETHER.
After Mollie had read the letter of Mrs. Le Moyne, it struck her
as a curious thing that she should write to her of the hunt which
was to be made after Nimbus, and the great excitement which there
was in regard to him. Knowing that Mrs. Le Moyne and Hesden were
both kindly disposed toward Eliab, and the latter, as she believed,
toward Nimbus also, it occurred to her that this might be intended
as a warning, given on the hypothesis that those parties were in
hiding and not dead.
At the same time, also, it flashed upon her mind that Lugena had
not seemed so utterly cast down as might naturally be expected of
a widow so suddenly and sadly bereaved. She knew something of the
secretive powers of the colored race. She knew that in the old slave
times one of the men now living in the little village had remained
a hidden runaway for months, within five miles of his master's house,
only his wife knowing his hiding-place. She knew how thousands
of these people had been faithful to our soldiers escaping from
Confederate prisons during the war, and she felt that a secret
affecting their own liberty, or the liberty of one acting or
suffering in their behalf, might be given into the keeping of the
whole race without danger of revelation.
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