I could hide with him.

An' we were coming to have you marry us tonight when God let Jed Hawkins drag me away, to sell me to a man over on the railroad--an' it was God who let Mister Roger go back and kill him.

I tell you He didn't do right! He didn't--he didn't--because Mister Roger brought me the first happiness I ever knew, an' I loved him, an' he loved me--an' God was wicked to let him kill Jed Hawkins--" Her voice cried out, a woman's soul broken in a girl's body, and Peter whimpered and watched the Missioner as he raised Nada to her feet and went with her into his bedroom, where a few minutes before he had lighted a lamp.

And Peter crept in quietly after them, and when the Missioner had gone and closed the door, leaving them alone in their tragedy, Nada seemed to see him for the first time and slowly she reached out her arms.
"Peter!" she whispered.

"Peter--Peter--" In the minutes that followed, Peter could feel her heart beating.
Clutched against her breast he looked up at the white, beautiful face, the trembling throat, the wide-open blue eyes staring at the one black window between them and the outside night.