Justice _versus_ prejudice, and prejudice had it; as, indeed, I suppose it will for a good many generations to come: invincible it appears to be in the American mind." "Invincible! is it so ?" She paused over the words, scrutinizing him meanwhile with an unconscious intensity.
"And this black man,--what of him?
He was flung out to starve and die; a proper fate, surely, for his presumption.

Poor fool! how did he dare to think he could compete with his masters! You know nothing of _him _ ?" Surely he must be mistaken.

What could this black man, or this matter, be to her?
yet as he listened her voice sounded to his ear like that of one in mortal pain.

What held him silent?
Why did he not tell her, why did he not in some way make her comprehend, that he, delicate exclusive, and patrician, as the people of his set thought him, had gone to this man, had lifted him from his sorrow and despondency to courage and hope once more; had found him work; would see that the place he strove to fill in the world should be filled, could any help of his secure that end.

Why did the modesty which was a part of him, and the high-bred reserve which shrank from letting his own mother know of the good deeds his life wrought, hold him silent now?
In that silence something fell between them.