CHAPTER IV.
It must not be supposed that Miss Sally did not feel some contrition over the ineffective part she had played in this last episode.
But Joseph Corbin had committed the unpardonable sin to a woman of destroying her own illogical ideas of him, which was worse than if he had affronted the preconceived ideas of others, in which case she might still defend him.

Then, too, she was no longer religious, and had no "call" to act as peacemaker.

Nevertheless she resented Julia Jeffcourt's insinuations bitterly, and the cousins quarreled--not the first time in their intercourse--and it was reserved for the latter to break the news of Corbin's arrival with the body to Mrs.Jeffcourt.
How this was done and what occurred at that interview has not been recorded.

But it was known the next day that, while Mrs.Jeffcourt accepted the body at Corbin's hands,--and it is presumed the funeral expenses also,--he was positively forbidden to appear either at the services at the house or at the church.

There had been some wild talk among the younger and many of the lower members of the community, notably the "poor" non-slave-holding whites, of tarring and feathering Joseph Corbin, and riding him on a rail out of the town on the day of the funeral, as a propitiatory sacrifice to the manes of Thomas Jeffcourt; but it being pointed out by the undertaker that it might involve some uncertainty in the settlement of his bill, together with some reasonable doubt of the thorough resignation of Corbin, whose previous momentary aberration in that respect they were celebrating, the project was postponed until AFTER THE FUNERAL.