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 swimming pool, adjoining the gymnasium had been boarded over and here and there little bowers had been erected into which couples could be persuaded with but little effort, between dances, where they could sit and chatter. The wide veranda surrounding two sides of the building on the outside, overlooking the track field had been turned into little paradises also, and it was here that Bennet had planned to have a few moments alone with Lida when she arrived.

He was all expectancy and anticipation. It had become known long ago about the college that he and Lida were engaged and his classmates as well as underclassmen were watching the romance with interest. Being one of the committee of arrangements he was unable to escort Lida to the dance but was on the watch for the taxicab that would bring her and some of the other girls whose escorts were also on the committee.

The worry with which Lida was troubled had made her rather reticent and during the ride to the campus she was silent while her companions chattered and laughed. Her large eyes seemed to have become larger and more blue, her face was pale with a radiance that was almost evanescent. Bennet was on the steps of the gymnasium waiting when the cab arrived and the girls were aided to alight. As she stepped from the cab Lida's heart seemed as if it would choke her with its loud beating. In his evening dress, as he rushed down the steps to meet her, he seemed to her like a Roman deity, joy in her presence radiating from his face, the delight of his love showing in

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 his eyes. Her own eyes drooped and for a moment her face flushed as the call of her heart pushed back the evil dreams that had been torturing her for the past few days. She trembled and went weak for a moment, seeming about to sink to her knees.

Bennet's touch revived her strength, however, and her arm rested in his hand as he aided her up the steps and piloted her to the reception room. A dozen eager youths sought dances with her but all were refused though so gently that none felt hurt. As she returned to the dance hall Bennet noted the lines of worry and the darkly circled eyes which drooped and did not meet his in the frank comrady way that had been customary.

"What's the trouble? hetrouble?" he [sic] asked, gently trying to puzzle out the attitude.

For reply she clung heavily to his arm and said:

"Take me away, Truman, please. I want to be alone—with you—I want to ask you something." The seriousness of her tone struck wonder to his soul. He led the way into the open air to the balcony which he had chosen as his particular trysting spot. As Lida saw the spot and noted that it adjoined several similar ones, she whispered;

"Not there—not there.—I want to be alone with you, where we can talk alone."

Without a word they descended the stairs leading to the track field and started to walk along the cinder path used by the sprinters. The scene was dark except for the lights shining from the briliantly lighted dance hall which they had left and the electric lights from the street corners

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 some distance away, on corners of the quadrangle.

Having noted the seriousness of the girl in her whispered request Truman waited for her to begin speaking and wondered. Lida was at a loss how to begin the subject, though the question seemed to be burning at the end of her tongue. When they had nearly reached the corner of the field in which the track for sprinters started she halted, her arm still resting on that of her escort.

Truman stood facing her as she almost clung pitifully to him. As they stood, suddenly her head drooped and she began to sob softly. Her anguish communicated itself to him.

"Lida, Mine, what's troubling you," he asked, a world of tenderness in his voice.

For reply she sobbed all the harder. He pleaded to be told her trouble. At last her grief seemed spent and she looked up.

"Truman, I love you, and I don't want to hurt you. I trust you and have trusted you with my life. I—I—I—don't know what to do." She burst into a fit of passionate weeping again.

All the love of her heart seemed to go to this man and she wanted him as she had wanted nothing else in the world. Fear to lose him if she asked the question and he became offended rivalled a fear that the words she wished not to hear might be spoken.

"I don't know what to do," she sobbed again.

"You'll not hurt me dear, unless you persist in weeping and not telling me what your trouble is. Nothing can hurt

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 me so long as I have your love. Tell me what the matter is."

For answer she reached up and gently caressed his cheeks with both hands, much as a mother soothes the child she loves. At last she mustered the courage she sought.

"Truman,—I am of a Southern family, proud of its ancestry, which runs back for generations in its history to the early colonists and further. You can have no understanding of the pride that runs through us." He attempted to interrupt her. "No," she pleaded, "don't interrupt me. Hear me out then answer me one question I'll ask.

"My family has been one of slave holders for generations back. Our lands have been tilled by slaves, our homes have been built and cared for by slaves till the Civil war. Since that time descendants of those slaves, former slaves and their children have cared for me and mine. As servants and slaves I have cared for them and they for me. But the attitude has been that of superior and inferior. It has been bred into us as children. We knew and know nothing else.

"It is only just recently that I have come to) realize that times are changing—have changed. New conditions have arisen and are arising. Despite the fact that I see these changes, the teachings of generations, the pride of the South grips me. I see former slaves and children of former slaves acquiring property, education and mounting to success yet I cannot go back of traditions.

"It is one of the boasts of my family that we were

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 never unkind to our slaves, nor have we been unkind to our tenants. We have been their patrons, even to those who have risen in wealth and education beyond the station of tenant and slave conditions. I was always aloof from their condition. It did not touch me." Here Lida paused for a moment, her hands still resting on Bennet's shoulders, her eyes looking up to his, a yearning in them.

"Only recently have I begun to live and to know life—to know what life means. Just as I was beginning to learn there comes a cloud and—and—I—I—I—I'm almost lost." Tears filled her eyes but she continued bravely. "I'm almost lost. Just as I began to know what love is, they tell me something to spoil it all. They say you have slave blood in you. Tell me, Truman, is that so? Is it true that you have colored blood in you?"

"If I say it's so, what will you do?" he asked.

"I don't know, Truman—I don't know." She clung piteously to the lapel of his coat, awaiting his answer, her soul tortured with anguish. There was a stabbing pain in his heart, so sharp as to cause him to gasp for breath. Bennet wrestled with himself as he had never before, debating whether to speak truthfully and risk the loss of her love for truth or to temporize. At last the dominant character of his nature triumphed and he resolved to speak the truth.

He caught the wrists of Lida's hands as they clung to the lapel of his coat, lifted his head, as his better nature won and, gripping her wrists till they pained her, in the tensity of his emotion, he told her:

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 "Yes, I'm of that race.—There is Negro blood in my veins.—Not slave blood, however—the blood of men is in my veins and of my ancestors and parents.—There's nothing shame-worthy in my blood. None of us are responsible for our birth. Our responsibility is the use we make of life. I have been taught that color counts for nothing. It is what we are.—Therefore I forget color. Besides, of what color am I?"

Lida's head drooped and she sobbed.

"Why couldn't you have told me this before. Why couldn't I have learned it before? Oh, God, what shall I do?"

"It never occurred to me that it would make any difference," he defended. "I loved you and you loved me, of what matter anything else? I gave no thought to ancestry, either yours or mine. When we marry we don't wed ancestry, we wed not tradition, but one another."

"I'm sorry," was all she said. "Take me back, Truman, please."

As they neared the gymnasium, Bennet felt her body shudder and turned to her tenderly. He held her arm tightly to comfort her and was conscious there was no shrinking away as he had half expected from this new turn of events. When they reached the steps and started to mount she turned, with:

"No—no—. Not now—I want to go home—Take me home."

Forgetful of her wraps in the reception room, she turned toward the waiting line of taxicabs. Truman dis-

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 patched one of the attendants for her cloak and hat, then when these came, bundled her into the taxicab, started to give directions, when she asked, pleadingly.

"Aren't you going to take me home?"

He silently stepped into the cab with her and they started for the school. The ways of women are past understanding. They are at once a source of torture and delight. Truman realized this as he pondered over the evening in the small hours of the morning when he had left the girl and was reviewing the scenes through which he had lived that night. When he was handing her out of the cab at the door of Miss Gregory's school, he was rescued for the moment from the despair into which his heart was buried as Lida, without a word, put her arms about his shoulders and kissed him with all her heart. Without a word she ran lightly up the steps and was gone, before he had time to recover from the surprise of the action.

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So bitter was his despair at the dashing of all his hopes that he failed to analyze Lida's last act. All the world suddenly seemed to have lost its brightness. Youth, so prone to building castles of air, had been busy with Bennet's ambitions and dreams during the past few months, so busy that he had not seemed to be living on earth but on some planet far away, peopled by but two persons. One short half hour had spoiled all his dreams and filled his heart with bitterness. Even her last kiss failed to console him. He seemed to have lost interest in life itself. Instead of ordering the cabman to return him to the dance, Bennet dismissed the man, without so much as a word, after paying him his fee, then began to walk away from the school.

Forgetting that he was one of the committee and his presence was needed to aid with the entertainment, he continued to walk past the campus and along the quiet shadowy streets of the residence section as in a daze. Without realizing what he was doing he turned back after a time and walked toward the college, bitter thoughts coursing through his mind; bitter at the fate that was his; bitter at the loss of the girl he loved and bitter at conditions which up to this time, he had never faced. He was nurtured and reared in an environment which had never before brought the subject of his race or nationality before him except in a vague indefinite way.

There are some cities and towns in the United States

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 where color is not heeded and men and families are judged by their character, success and citizenship, because the invidious propaganda of southern caste hopes had not penetrated. It was in such a community that Bennet had been reared and schooled. Nor had his companions at college given him cause to think seriously of such matters.

His family, because of their stability and success financially had been rated one of the best in the little town of Bremen where he had been schooled, and Bennet's life had been uneventfully one of ordinary youthful progress. His father was a college man, his mother a refined school teacher and though they knew of the potentialities of prejudices, had purposely hesitated to burden their children with any such hampering outlook on life. They took their places in the citizenship of the town, were accepted at the rating on which they placed themselves, that of ordinary citizens, and raised their children in such an atmosphere.

When it came time for Bennet to attend college his school was selected and he matriculated along with two others from his graduating class. He had never tried to conceal anything about his origin. It simply did not occur to him that any explanation would ever be necessary. Little did he dream that the most serious blow of his life was to come to him from this cause.

He was awakened from his dolorous thoughts by the strains of music from the dance orchestra as he had unconsciously turned his footsteps toward the college again.

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 At the sounds he remembered that he was one of the committee and began to hurry back to the hall. Suddenly he realized that to return without Lida would call for explanations and decided to continue to his room.

Here he threw himself into a Morris chair where gloomy thoughts engulfed him. Dawn was lighting the eastern sky in streaks, great beams of light flashing intermittently brighter and brighter across the house and tree tops when Bennet's thoughts returned to the present. Taxicab after taxicab rolled and rumbled away from the gymnasium as the last of the dancers departed. At last the chatter of departing couples and their chaperones ended. He sat at his window looking toward the East. As he sat the great ball of fire that gives life to daylight and its hopes climbed the horizon and pierced his eyes. The whole sky was burnished crimson. Bennet noted none of these things, however, his entire body was numbed and his mind in a daze.

Great calamities sometimes affect persons in that manner. They are robbed of their senses, overwhelmed at the immensity of the weight seeming to crush them. Bennet seemed to be affected in this manner. He gave no heed to his surroundings, till a pair of pigeons alighted on the window sill in front of him. The persistent efforts of the male to win the attention of his mate, the struttings, cooings, and other antics compelled attention. Just when the male pranced in front of the mate to begin billing the lady pigeon changed her mind and flew away. The surprise of the bird left behind, the chagrin of defeat and the

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 seeming loss of companionship anticipated, recalled Bennet back to the present with such a snap of realization that he almost laughed outright at the bird.

"That's the way of life, old bird," he said. "Disappointment steps in just before success."

At the sound of his voice the remaining bird took wing. Bennet's eyes followed till the pigeon was lost to view. As he looked over the trees his thoughts turned to Lida. The despondency spell was broken, however, and though heart was still heavy, youth is so prone to quick reactions that he began to wonder what she was doing and how she had passed the night. He wondered if she was as miserable as he.

"She can't be," he mused. "What has she to lose?"

Little did he realize that Lida, too, was suffering as had he. Torn between pride and the clamor of her heart she was in a state bordering on insanity. She had not retired but sat, the picture of desolation, by her window weighing all the recent events of her life as they passed in kaleidoscopic sequence before her. She was sitting thus, toying with the ring Bennet had given her when they plighted their lives to each other, when suddenly she felt an arm steal about her waist and the gentle voice of Miss Gregory sounded in her ear.

"Let me help you, dear. I know you are in deep trouble. Tell me. Trouble that is shared soon flees. You need not let a quarrel with Louise spoil your life, or temper."

Intuitively Miss Gregory knew that no girlish quarrel was the cause of this condition in her pupil. She took

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 this indirect method of getting the girl to talk. Lida turned slowly toward her, looked at her for several seconds, sighed, and as she did so her lips began to tremble, while her hand sought that of Miss Gregory as if for comfort.

"Miss Gregory," Lida finally spoke. "Were you ever in love?"

"Foolish child. Every woman, at some time in her life has loved, whether successfully or not." Miss Gregory consoled philosophically.

"I mean, did you ever love, hard enough and strong enough to give up everything for the one you loved."

"Yes, I loved hard enough for all that. But I did not have the courage to give up everything for love. That's why I'm at the head of this school."

"Do you regret giving up your love?" Lida probed.

"Let me tell you, child," Miss Gregory said with a sigh. "No sacrifice can compensate for the loss of love to a woman. And when once a woman loves, never does she forget that love. If I had my life to live over again, if I could recall the lover I once had, nothing would stop me from going to and with him, even to the ends of the earth."

"Nothing, Miss Gregory," Lida asked sadly, pathos in her voice.

"Nothing, dear." Miss Gregory bent close to the girl. "Nothing is worth so much to a human being as love. In fact nothing in life whether of humans or animals is worth more than love. It is love that rules the Universe. Love that rules us. We rule animals best, not by force but by

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 the love and kindness we show them. It is love, of a divine kind that sways the world and keeps us from catastrophe after catastrophe, cataclysm after cataclysm. But as for humans there is nothing so beautiful or so satisfying to a woman as the love of a good man—her man."

"But suppose, there are differences?" Lida persisted.

"There can and should be no differences. There were differences in my case and these differences, mere shadows, have caused me many a night of tears and regrets. Family should not count, nor should religion—And financial circumstances least of all. So long as tastes are in harmony, desires and ambitions dovetail, nothing should matter."

"But, Miss Gregory, suppose there's difference in nationality?"

"The question of love between two persons is a matter of individuality, personality and nationality should not matter any more than religion. God gave us the gift of love, or rather breathed into us the spirit of love, which is himself, before he divided us into nations and races, or religions. I have learned to know this after bitter experiences."

Lida nestled closer to the elder woman as if the words comforted. She still had some questions to ask for she sighed pathetically. Miss Gregory drew the girl closer to her as if to encourage her to talk. Before Lida could frame another question, however, Miss Gregory continued ruminatively:

"The trouble with most of us is we love not truly."

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 "Oh, Miss Gregory, how can you say that?" Lida asked.

"It is true," was the defense. "We love form, social position, public approbation, grandeur, wealth, and many things when we men and women should love character, gentility, good breeding, soul, ideals, moral courage, beauty of spirit in persons. I neglected to see these and have been left a lonely aging woman."

"But you have your school and the love of your girls. You are dear to them and they must be to you," Lida offered.

"True, but what love can compensate a woman for the love of a strong good man and children? No, my dear, if you truly love a man and he loves you, follow your love and your heart."

"But, Miss Gregory, my case is so different. You don't understand. I—I—can't tell you." Lida burst into a fit of weeping again.

Miss Gregory stroked the head that now lay in her lap. As she stroked the girl's head she soothed her with:

"You poor child. Don't worry, it will all come out right." Suddenly Lida sat up, looked into the eyes of the elder woman then asked:

"Miss Gregory, could you,—would you marry a man of the colored race—a man of slave race, if you were of a family that had owned slaves?"

Miss Gregory paled and almost swooned. "Oh, God," she said, "is that the trouble? You poor child, no wonder you worry. What a calamity! What an awful calamity," she began to weep herself. Lida looked on in wonder-

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 ment not knowing what to think. Miss Gregory, however, through her tears was picturing the calamity to her school, and the scandal news of such an affair would create among her pupils; she saw her school wrecked since parents would no longer send their children to her place as a select school for finishing. She saw her livelihood vanishing, and panic seized her. Tears dried and horror gripped her heart.

"You don't mean that, dear girl." She finally managed to say. "What will your father say? What will everybody say. Where did you meet him? Oh, forget him, forget him, forget him. Such a thing is impossible! Such a thing would only mean trouble. Don't think of it. Who is he? Tell me."

"I'm afraid it's too late now, Miss Gregory. I love him," Lida said simply.

"Who is he? Where did you meet him? How did it happen?" A thousand questions rushed in panicky fashion through the elder woman's mind.

Lida looked at her adviser in amazement. "Why, you just said nationality shouldn't count. What did you mean?"

"Not that,—not that, not that," Miss Gregory wailed. "I never dreamed of that. You will ruin us all, ruin me, ruin my school—Oh, God, what shall I do?"

"Then you didn't mean what you were just saying?—You were just trying to comfort me. All your fine words were empty?—And I thought I had a friend," she ended pathetically.

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 The elder woman was silent till the silence was becoming painful to the two. Lida essayed to speak again. Miss Gregory, her head still bowed, the chin cupped in a hand, her elbow on the arm of the Morris chair, was still silent. The words she had spoken to the girl were still repeating themselves in her mind. Did nothing matter? She was asking herself. As she debated she recalled her own broken romance of early life, how this had spoiled her life and caused her heart to wither and dry till she opened this school. Her romance had been broken because of proud parents and the question of wealth but it had been broken just the same. Now after sacrificing love for wealth, her family had lost their wealth, her father and mother had died, the former of grief over financial losses and she had been left cheated out of both wealth and love. Lida had risen and was standing at the window of her room looking onto the street. As Miss Gregory thought the lines deepened in her face till it became drawn and somewhat hard and pale. The silence was tense. Finally she sighed deeply. Lida turned and the teacher beckoned the girl to her.

"Lida," she said, "I am here as teacher, counsellor and guide to my girls. What I said a little while ago I meant. Nothing in life should outweigh love, if we are truly to be happy. The question of whether we are to sacrifice love for other things is a matter for each to decide. I know human nature enough to say that women look on love and marriage differently than do men. If a woman loves a man she cares not who he is or what he is. If she decides

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 that a man can make her happy and keep her happy, she cares not who or what he is. Most of us, though, are color cowards and public opinion cowards. We fear what the other fellow will say; what the other girl will say.

"For a girl to marry a colored man requires heroic courage, here in America. There are many such marriages, it is true, but none between a girl of your standing and rearing and one of that race. I don't think the man ought to ask the girl to make such a sacrifice.—"

"Oh, he hasn't asked me," Lida hastened to defend. Miss Gregory waved her hand impatiently at the interruption.

"For a girl of your standing to take such a step means the sacrifice of home, family, friends, wealth; the causing of bitterness, heartaches on the part of your family and much doubt as to the success of the experiment. You will be cut off entirely from your friends and associates who will see only that you have thrown your life away; you will be without companions except such as he, from his choosing may bring to you and such an act can mean only trouble and grief, for you. I have known some happy marriages of the kind, and see no reason why such unions should not be happy except that conditions in America are not ripe for such. The world is too full of prejudice. In some other country it might be successful. It has been successful—It would be successful. The question is, in your case, is he worth the worry and sacrifice to be entailed?

"I think not. I would advise, before your romance goes

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 too far, that you forget it. When I spoke of forgetting, it was before I was thinking of what the story of such an alliance would mean for me and my school. I am getting to be an old woman now, and this has been my dependence. Therefore, you will understand and forgive me, for the outburst, selfish as it was. For your own sake, Lida, child—for your own sake I would advise you to forget this romance. It is your first, and a girlish romance. It will be easy to forget. There will come a greater love in your life some day and you will look back on this romance as a girlish dream and be glad you did not take the step you contemplate."

"Has that been your experience, Miss Gregory?" Lida asked.

"Oh, no. But my case was different. I was in love with a white man."

"You loved, though, didn't you?" Lida persisted.

"Yes."

"You still love, don't you?"

"Yes."

"And that is true love, isn't it? You didn't care what the man was, you just loved him?" Miss Gregory bowed her head in assent. "Well, I have loved and do love. I did not ask what manner of man it was I loved. I know him to be a man and I love him. It is too late now to talk forgetting. I'll never forget him. How can I forget what my heart wants as it has wanted nothing else in my life. Besides he saved my life and I owe it to him. I would go to the ends of the earth with him. What if he

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 has colored blood in him, he also has white blood, and except that, to me he stands out above all the men I have known. He is no different from any other man."

Miss Gregory now saw that it would be useless to argue further with Lida but decided she would do what she could to thwart any further intercourse with Lida and her lover, even though as yet she had not learned the name of the young man. She reasoned that the name would be easy to secure when once her plans were made, since she could get the information from some of the other girls in the school. When she saw Lida becoming excited over the subject she dismissed it with:

"Well, my dear, we'll talk things over again later. You'll be excused from classes today, now get some sleep and I'll send a nurse to look after you, then perhaps, tonight I'll come and talk it all over with you again." With that she kissed the girl and was gone.

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As she passed from the room the weight of the world seemed on her shoulders and her face bore lines of tragedy. She knew that to oppose her will to the will of a young girl in love was but to aggravate and drive the girl more quickly into the arms of her lover. Such is the perverseness of young people; has been and always will be. She decided that such a course would not do. Miss Gregory decided that the best thing to do was to find out who the young man was, try to prevail upon him to give up the girl and that failing, to seek some other means of breaking up the match. That there should be no match she was determined. She would not allow her protege to throw her life away. She had just reached her room and fallen weakly into her study chair by the little table at which she did most of her work when she had a sudden inspiration. On the instant she touched the bell near the base of the study lamp. A maid responded.

"Ask Miss Comstock to come to me immediately, if possible, please."

The maid departed and in a few minutes Louise Comstock stood wonderingly before the head of the school.

"Sit down, please, Miss Comstock. I wish to talk with you. How's your headache? Better, child?" she inquired.

"Yes, Miss Gregory, thank you." Miss Comstock replied.

"What made you ill, dear? You didn't attend the re-

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 ception at the college the other night. That's unusual for you. What was the trouble?"

Miss Gregory was watching the expression on the girl's face keenly. She noted immediately upon asking the question, the spasm of pain that swept over the countenance, saw the eyelids flutter and droop and the lips twitch nervously. She also thought she detected a tear. Immediately she surmised the trouble and asked:

"Had a spat with your escort? sheescort?" she [sic] asked shrewdly. "Too bad," she continued kindly and philosophically. "I hope the differences are all mended or soon will be."

When Louise remained silent, Miss Gregory continued. "I did not ask you here to hurt you. I want to know something about a young man. What sort of a man is Truman Bennet? The young man who rescued you and Miss Lauriston?"

At mention of the name the girl looked up with a gasp of surprise. She gazed at the elder woman intently as if to read the reason of the question. Miss Gregory returned the look and waited. For a moment Louise wondered whether to speak truly or not. Finally she seemed to detect a flicker of a friendly smile about Miss Gregory's lips that invited confidence. Without a word she arose, stepped over to the chair at which the teacher sat, rested on the arm with her own arm about the shoulders of the elder woman, then bent over and tenderly kissed Miss Gregory's forehead. With that she burst out, "Oh, Miss Gregory, how did you know? How did you know?" Her tone was joyful, believing that the older woman, whose

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 duty it was to know all the secrets of her girls in some way, divined the fact that Louise was in love with Truman Bennet.

Miss Gregory, thinking of Lida, preferred to preserve silence, and wait.

With a sigh of contentment and consolation at the thought that she had a friend in whom she could confide, Louise spoke tenderly and softly. There is no solace for a troubled soul so welcomed as the ear of sympathetic friend. It was the first time Louise had had opportunity for unburdening her heart to anyone and she was glad of the chance. With a voice softened almost to a whisper by the emotion which moved her, she said:

"Truman Bennet, Miss Gregory, is—is—," the girl hesitated, seeking words for describing him, while Miss Gregory waited. Suddenly she burst out with, "Oh, Miss Gregory, I can't describe him. He's my ideal."

Miss Gregory turned to look at the girl, saw the rapt tenderness of her face, guessed at the emotions which moved her and made a mental notation, then asked:

"What does he look like?"

"He's tall, swarthy, like a Spaniard or a Moor, with brown eyes."

"Where does he come from? Who are his parents?"

"He's in the graduating class at college—He's a senior. From one of the little towns of the State. I don't know his family, except that they say they are—" Louise hesitated as she remembered the nationality of Bennet. "He's

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 a perfect man and a gentleman, however," she hastily added as if in defense.

From the emotion detected in the girl at the beginning of the conversation, Miss Gregory had expected a rapturous description of the young man. When she found the girl loathed to speak of Bennet, and then only in terms of quiet praise and defense, she realized that Louise, too, entertained a deep emotion for Bennet. With this realization she asked:

"Have you seen him often?"

"Yes, when at games and at other times the boys give. He's very popular. I've never been in his company much. He's the young man who saved me during the strike riot last fall."

"Oh, I see." She turned to the girl with: "Would you marry him?"

The two looked straight into each other's souls at the question, Louise hesitated a moment, then dropped her head as she answered.

"Yes, Miss Gregory. I would if he asked me. But he won't—he won't."

Miss Gregory arose, stroked the girl's head then walked to her window and gazed to the street. "Maybe he will," she said—"Maybe he will. That is all dear."

Louise, hesitated, still seated on the arm of the chair from which Miss Gregory had risen. She wanted to speak her heart but maidenly emotions prevented. Slowly she left the room, half cheered, half disheartened, and full of wonder.

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 For some minutes after Louise had departed Miss Gregory continued to gaze from the window down the street far into the past to where the romance of her own life had begun and ended. Despite the promptings of what she considered her duty, the picture of a youth and girl crossing a meadow in a rich coloring of spring sunset, smiling happily at each other and planning the many things they would do, now that they had pledged their lives and had promised to love each other. She was the girl and the youth a young man, son of humble parents whose fewacre farm adjoined the country estate of her parents. The picture of this romance conjured again from the past pleaded with her in the case of Lida and Bennet. Stern reality of the present, the duty she felt to her school, to herself and to the father who had entrusted the girl to her care and training, all argued against romance. The argument was too strong and romance lost. With tears in her eyes, reminders of her own bitterness, she turned away from the window determined upon a course of action. She would interview Bennet and convince him of the futility of pursuing the course he was on.

While summoning a messenger she penned a polite note asking "Would Mr. Truman Bennet be kind enough to call at the office of Miss Gregory, of Miss Gregory's finishing school at 4.30 o'clock or as soon thereafter as was convenient."

With the note dispatched she sat at her desk to await an answer. With a feeling that she was trespassing guiltily where she had no right, she waited, wondering whether

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 the note would bring the young man or whether her effort would fail. The trepidation of her heart increased as the minutes passed and the messenger failed to return, with an answer. The college and school were so near each other that they were almost like a New England co-educational institution. In fact some of the instructors from the college eked out their salary by instructing some of the classes at the finishing school. As she waited, Miss Gregory began to grow nervous and, able to remain sitting no longer, began to pace the room. She was just on the point of giving up hope of the young man's coming when the messenger returned with word that Bennet would be pleased to obey the summons.

Bitter thoughts so traced themselves across the brain of Truman Bennet, following the night of the Promenade that thoughts, locking his room and barring all companions who he was unable to study. He gave himself up to his gloomy sought to talk with him about the success of the affair. When at last they became alarmed and insisted in seeing him, he announced that he was ill and wished to remain undisturbed. After his classmates and friends had experienced some of his irritation they became fully convinced that he was truly ill. They ministered to him as best they could with his consent so far as he would give it, then departed. Left to himself Truman became feverish from worry. He turned his room into a miniature drug store in his efforts to relieve himself of the headache from which he suffered. Try as he would, however, no relief came since he could not shake off his misery.

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 When the messenger reached his room with the note from Miss Gregory, he seemed on the verge of insanity from his suffering. At the first knocking at his door he resolved not to answer. When the knocking was repeated, determinedly, however, he shouted, petulantly, "Go away. Get away from that door and don't bother me." He was just about to hurl a handy caraffe of water against the door to emphasize his desire to be left alone, when the voice of the messenger called:

"Mr. Bennet—Mr. Bennet—I've got a note for you."

"Who is it?" Bennet asked.

"Me," came back ungrammatically. "It's me, the messenger boy."

"What messenger boy. I don't want any messenger boy."

"I've got a note from Miss Gregory's school for Mr. Bennet. Is that you?"

At mention of Miss Gregory's school, Bennet leaped from the couch on which he had been reclining. He leaped so quickly as to jump out of the bedroom slippers in which his feet were encased. He was across the room in an instant with the door opened. In his pajamas and dressing robe, with his hair dishevelled, and a white bandage about his head he presented such a ghostly wild appearance that the boy was on the point of bolting. Bennet grabbed the missive from the outstretched hand, tore the envelope open and read the formal scented note Miss Gregory had sent him. In puzzlement over the signature he lifted his hand to his forehead and unconsciously

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 pushed the bandage from his forehead, pressing his hand there instead.

For a few seconds he failed to comprehend the note. Visions of Lida came to him; fear that she was ill, or that something had happened to her almost had him frantic. Suddenly he recalled their parting and realized that this could not be so when she had not the feeling for him that he had for her. The boy waited patiently. Finally he said:

"There's an answer. She said I was to wait for it."

"Oh," gasped Bennet. "Yes,—yes—Oh, there's an answer.—Tell her I'll be there. Tell her I'll—I'll—be there."

With that he closed the door and began to prepare for the visit. Youth quickly reacts against emotions and by the time Bennet had finished a cold shower with a brisk rubdown, his mood of gloom had almost left him and he found his headache gone. He was once more looking sanely at life and wondering what could be the meaning of the invitation to call. His toilet was deliberate and careful as was always his way. When he left his room, his mates across the hall were so surprised at his immaculateness of dress and his quick recovery from tormenting illness that they believed he had suddenly gone insane and watched him intently. Fear that, in his madness he planned to harm himself, several of them followed down the stairs and halfway across the campus, at a discreet distance, however.

When he turned into Prospect Street and started in the

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 direction of Miss Gregory's school, they decided he was on his way to call on Lida and, with the wisdom of college youth, concluded that Bennet's illness was due to a love quarrel and that he was on the way to a peace conference. For a few moments longer, after they had paused in their pursuit, they gazed steadily at Bennet, watched his steady, firm, though hurried stride, clapped each other on the back as they chuckled, hooked feet, with hands resting on shoulders, then did a one-foot dance.

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Bennet was not long in reaching the school and was ushered into the office. This was a large, high-ceiled room with but little furniture save a rug in the center on which was a wide flat-topped desk of heavy oak, an office swivel chair behind it and a straight backed chair in front and facing the office chair. There were one or two other chairs at the sides. On the walls were reproductions of ruins of the Parthenon at Rome, a front view of the school from which several students looked, standing on the steps, a landscape, and a trophy of some hunting expedition. He stood hat in hand, hesitating before seating himself, when from an inner room opposite the entrance door, Miss Gregory appeared, extending a hand and smiling as she greeted him. Her nerves had been in such a condition as she waited that she was still and despite her efforts at self control she could feel her face alternately flush and pale.

"Mr. Bennet, I'm glad you came. I see you got my note." Before he could frame a reply she turned, took her seat and beckoned Bennet to the chair opposite the desk, with: "Won't you be seated, please."

As he turned to the seat indicated, Miss Gregory became self possessed enough to study Bennet. She noted the frank open countenance; the confident poise, the clear brown eyes, the firm chin, well chiseled lips, that indicated kindness, the brown wavy hair falling back from the high forehead and realized that he was just the sort of

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 young man who would catch a girl's fancy. She could see, however, that he was unconscious of his attractiveness and power; that he was unassuming and modest by his bearing. She almost decided not to go through with what she planned. The lines of her face softened for an instant and her grey eyes became pitying. This feeling of pity recalled her to her task, however, and after hesitating, while Bennet waited, she sighed then began. The grey eyes became cold.

"Mr. Bennet," she said. "I have a very unpleasant duty to perform." She paused as if hoping Bennet would say something. He remained quiet, however. "You know, my school is very select. We cater to the most particular families. We take pride in the care we take of our students, the cultural training we give them and the standing of the families patronizing us.

"You must realize how careful we have to be that our girls are preserved from contact with others than those of the social set to which they are accustomed. There are those among my pupils whose ancestry dates back to families of the nobility of England; others who spring from Colonial stock and others along whose family tree may be traced generation after generation of distinguished citizens.

"I mention these things," she continued, when, after a pause, Bennet still chose to remain silent and to hear her out, "to show how utterly out of place and unsuccessful associations and marriages along the lines I have indicated would be.

"Take yourself, for instance. Popular and well bred

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 though you are. For I have learned that you are one of the most popular young men at college, you could not hope to contract a marriage with one of my girls, however friendly you might become with one of them."

"Was it for this," Bennet asked, calmly, "that you asked me here?"

Miss Gregory's face turned pink as she bowed her head in acknowledgment. As he spoke, Bennet's mind flashed to a paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, which he had learned at school. "All men are endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

At her acquiescence, Bennet sat back in his chair as he said:

"Miss Gregory, from a study of the Mayflower band's history, the history of other colonists, and early settlers, it would seem that there is much in the life of these that might be left buried in the coffins of the past. There are things in their lives of which present day descendants don't care to boast. To rattle the dry bones of ancestry may not be the wisest act for some of us. So far as heritage is concerned, I can boast of as much as they. Perhaps more. I have as good breeding behind me as the best, my family mey not be as wealthy but it certainly has as good training as any in America. I have been as carefully and as well reared. So I don't see how the things you mention concern me."

"Yes, my dear boy, but you don't understand."

"I understand enough to know that a lady has invited

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 me here to insult me. If that is good breeding, please excuse me." With that he started to rise. Miss Gregory began to fear her mission would fail.

"Oh, be patient," she exclaimed. "Hear me. You don't understand.

"You are different, don't you know. All you say might be true of any other race and nationality but yours."

"Race? Nationality? Of what race and nationality am I?"

"You are colored, are you not?"

"What do you say?"

"I?—I can't say. I ask you." She parried.

"I am of mixed blood. There is a strain of colored blood in me. But I am much honored in the blood. There is a strain of white blood in me, and I am much honored in the blood, for both bloods are one. To have the blood of a former slave in one's veins is not of itself a disgrace. Many of our early settlers were slaves before coming here or the descendants of slaves. They are none the less men for that. Therefore I say it is of no matter so long as I prove a man whether there be one strain or many strains of blood coursing through my veins. It ill becomes a woman and a lady, who prides herself in ancestry and good breeding to make an invited guest the butt of insults. Besides, what does this interview mean? Why was I asked here?"

In a last final effort, Miss Gregory took in a deep breath, leaned across the desk and said: "You have assumed,—dared to fall in love with one of my girls. She

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 in her innocence has taken a fancy to you. I asked you here to show you the folly of such an affair; to appeal to your judgment and reasoning, your regard for the girl; your gallantry, to break away from any such affair."

"Go back on my word, forsake my pledge and thereby prove myself a cad?" Bennet exclaimed, thinking of Lida. "You ask what will never be. I could never consider myself a man or square myself with my idea of manliness by such an act. Besides, what would become of the girl?"

"Oh, I'll look out for her. If you pass out of her life she will soon forget you. Her's is only a girlish infatuation. Besides, you know she could never marry you even though you had all the wealth and breeding in the world. Your race is against you. The girl doesn't love you. She doesn't know what love is."

At these words, and remembering the talk on the cinder path the night of the Promenade, Bennet began to feel that perhaps the words of Miss Gregory were true. His heart sank. He arose to end the interview. Miss Gregory believing she had scored, stood also and as a bit of parting advice, said:

"Miss Lauriston could never love you and is only carried away for the moment with the newness of her life. Forget her, my boy. Find some other girl and wed in your own race and be happy."

Bennet turned his eyes blazing with anger he could no longer restrain. He towered like a righteous young god before Miss Gregory who quailed.

"Miss Gregory, what you have said may be true. I

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 don't believe it. Miss Lauriston is not a girl to love lightly; nor is she a girl to pledge her word and go back on it. Until she tells me of her own volition that she did not mean what she said I'll take her word for it. And whether she does or not, my love is hers. It will always be hers and all the powers of hell cannot prevent me from loving her."

With that he stalked from the room. Miss Gregory, feeling that her mission had failed, sank back into her chair, her head on her arm on the desk. Bennet, despite his passion was more than half convinced that Miss Gregory was right in saying that Lida did not love him, and was passing down the hallway to the door, in a pall of gloom when suddenly he heard the swish of a dress and felt someone grasp his hand, pressing into it a bit of paper, then closing it tightly again. He turned at the touch of the hand but the act was so quick that whoever it was had disappeared in a room at hand before he could catch more than a glimpse of her. He was still thoroughly angry when he reached the sidewalk.

He almost forgot the little slip of paper which he clutched. Suddenly he paused, opened the paper and read: "I love you, with all my heart. I love you. No matter what happens. I love you and always will.

Lida."

The effect was instantaneous. He lifted his head and laughed with joy. To Miss Gregory, who was watching his departure, the laughter was puzzling and mysterious. She felt that she had argued in vain and was beaten.

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 There was another looking from a window, from behind heavy draperies. To this window Bennet turned, smiled and lifted his hat. He trod on air.

Lida, into whose soul had come the conviction that love was greater than any other feeling, after the fashion of her kind who when touched by the spirit of love, has awakened in them the feeling of mothering, was won over to the protection of her lover and forced to rally to his defense by the attitude of Miss Gregory, and her so positive opposition. Thus instead of discouraging the girl, Miss Gregory raised a wall of defense in Bennet's behalf.

As Lida went to her room she was more and more intense in her defense. Instead of feeling discouraged, she was more and more in love and resented, as she reviewd the conversation, the interference of her teacher. It was while debating the whole situation over in her mind as she stood at her window that she saw Bennet approaching the school. Her heart gave a throb of happiness at his sight that was like a sharp pain in its intensity. She stood with her hands clasped over her heart, fearing that he was merely passing the building. For a moment she felt resentful that he could seem so happy when she was so miserable over the situation and had been so wretched. She had believed that he too was suffering as she had, and the consciousness of compariion suffering had drawn her closer to him.

She watched him, from behind the draperies till he mounted the steps when she turned, expectantly, waiting to be summoned to the reception room. When no sum-

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 mons came, curiosity to know what had brought him to the school and where he had gone prompted her to go to the head of the stairs. She was just in time to see him being ushered into the office of Miss Gregory. At first she was surprised but suddenly with the wise intuition which her experiences were giving her she reasoned that Miss Gregory must have summoned the young man with the determination to break off their affair.

Indignation swelled her soul at the thought and she also feared that Miss Gregory, in her determination, would offer insult to Bennet. She was too well bred to do eavesdropping, though the temptation was strong. For a moment or so she was in a quandary what to do, then her mind hit upon the plan of waiting till the interview was over and assuring Bennet of her regard for him despite what had been disclosed. It was due to this that Truman found himself in possession of the note that so cheered him.

Nothing so fills a man with daring as the knowledge that love given is received and returned. It was this that made cave men battle; it was for this that kingdoms have been overturned; it was for this that histories have been changed and remade; and it is but as God intended. When we are filled with that divine spark, we humans, no obstacle is too great to be overcome. Cowards become heroes and criminals become saints.

With the words of the note burning themselves into Bennet's heart and brain he trod air and walked with the step of a Hercules capable of accomplishing any set num-

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 ber of tasks. He was still in this mood when he reached his room. In addition to the great love which possessed him there was a feeling of tender gratitude toward the girl who gave such evidence of being the real character he had pictured her.

Real love uplifts and deifies, and the love of these two was real. In his ecstacy, Truman sat at his desk and poured out his soul to Lida in a letter which, after recounting all his experiences, ended with the words:

"I want to do nothing that will bring harm to you. I will do nothing that will bring harm to you. And yet I want you with all the yearning of a true man's heart. I shall always want you in that way. Life would have been; life will be dark as the nights at sea without the beacon of your love. I shall reverence you the more for the circumstances of your love, and matters not what the future brings to us, no bitterness of experience will be able to blot out of mind the happy fact that I am loved by and do love the noblest woman that has lived."

When this letter was mailed, Bennet turned to reveries and dreams of future happiness, sitting at his desk and looking into the future with all the optimism of youth, building air castles and planning how to shape his life to be worthy of the love he had won, all his anguish gone.

Lida, also, after he had departed from the school, busied herself with plans for the future. Though in her woman's way and with her woman's instincts, she saw into the future with much more clearness than did Bennet. As she studied the future, while her heart was happy, she realized

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 that there was much trouble in store for her.

"Yet," she decided, "his love is worth it all. We grow up to meet, make and face our own circumstances. I have my life to live and must live it. I'd rather live it with love than without."

With that conclusion, after sitting far into the night she prepared for bed and retired, a happy smile on her face, the reflection of happiness of heart.

Miss Gregory also was sitting up until late in the evening pondering over the events of the past few days and particularly the interview she had with Bennet. She felt she had made an impression on the young man as she talked with him and also that she had won him over so that it would be easy to break off any associations. When Bennet, however, tossed his head back and laughed, the act she had witnessed as he departed, she became puzzled and felt less sure of herself and the success of her plan. She was not to be outwitted, however, in her determination. Before she retired she had decided on her next course. She would appeal to the faculty of the college to impress upon Bennet the futility of his plan, the sad consequences and they would be able to bring pressure to bear that would have a sobering effect on the young man.

"I'll prevent him from graduating, if he persists," she determined as she shook her head to emphasize the determination. "I'll let him know a thing or two. That child must be saved. That's all there is to it. She must be saved. I'll see the President tomorrow."

With that action settled in her mind she retired.

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With Miss Gregory to make a decision was to act. It was but living up to this characteristic the following morning when, after having gotten her classes well started she set off for the college administration building for the purpose of laying the facts before the president and enlisting his aid. Coming to the large, imposing, ivy covered structure which, with its atmosphere of quiet, gave the impression of studiousness and culture, she stepped into the reception room, sent her card to the President and was shortly ushered in.

The President, a short, quickly nervous acting man, whose rotundity of body gave one the impression of a city alderman, accustomed to and enjoying the good things of life, smiled and bounced to his feet as Miss Gregory came into the room, his massive head with its heavy thatch of just-turning grey hair nodded vigorously at the same time that he smiled broadly. All he needed was the apron and a butcher knife to have seemed the inn-keeper in some old world village.

These two had had many meetings before for the purpose of adjudicating differences and matters relating to the students of one school or the other. It was in anticipation of some such trouble that Dr. Dennig greeted Miss Gregory on this morning. Despite the fact that they had met on many other occasions there never was an occasion for such a meeting but that the genial President had tried to grasp the hand of the head of the Girls' school in a way

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 to give the impression of affection for her. It was always a flabby sort of grip that Miss Gregory, when she spoke of the incident at all with her intimates, had described as "clammy."

As he stood, this morning, he reached for the hand again, with:

"Why, good morning, Miss Gregory! How do you do?"

Miss Gregory failed to notice the extended hand or to recognize the greeting except with a bow.

"To what am I indebted for this so early a visit on such a spring morning? I hope it is an errand of love—a—a—a personal errand, I mean." Here he tried again to reach the hand of the woman. Miss Gregory tightened her lips and sat in the chair at the side of the desk. When she still remained silent though smiling to conceal her dislike of the man and his mannerisms, Dr. Dennig continued:

"I suppose some of my boys have been flirting again. Or rather that your girls have been tempting my boys and you come to blame them for being led on. You know, I can't blame my boys, when I'm so hard hit myself by the—," here he bowed again as best he could over the front elevation of himself, "director of the school. I—"

Before he could continue, Miss Gregory interrupted with:

"Dr. Dennig, don't be a fool all your life. Remember you're head of this institution and conduct yourself accordingly. I have come to complain of one of your boys and I want your help. I want the help of the entire faculty."

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 "Ah, is it as serious as that? That you deem it a faculty matter?"

"You'll see how serious it is," she snapped.

"I'm all attention then, proceed," he directed.

"I have a southern young woman in my school, who comes from a proud, very proud and distinguished family. She and one of your students have fallen desperately in love."

"I don't see that that is such a serious matter. Young men and young women have fallen in love before, even as you and I,—I beg pardon, even as I with you. That's a characteristic of youth, you know. So long as they observe the laws of society, what matters to us? They've done so in other years here and I presume this will not be an off year in the matter of announced engagements when graduations take place. Why worry?"

"But, you don't understand. This engagement is folly—perfect folly, besides it will wreck a young girl's life and will wreck my school."

"My dear Miss Gregory, have you not learned yet that youth will brook no interference when it comes to its love affairs. At least not in these modern days. In our day—"

"I beg pardon," she interrupted.

"In my day," Dr. Dennig corrected hastily, "parents and guardians had much to say concerning the companions of youth and choices for mates but times have changed. We are in a new day. Young people have more freedom. They take more freedom—demand more and when we old fogies attempt to interfere its like trying to harness an un-

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 broken Texas pony. Now my advice is to let this matter severely alone."

"But, you don't understand. You don't understand."

"But I do understand. I understand you fear that this match if consummated will wreck your school. He on that. You fear needlessly. No love affair ever broke up a school."

"This one will—," Miss Gregory persisted "and if you don't act, it will break yours up also."

"Never." Dr. Dennig shook his head pompously.

"Well, hear me out anyway then decide. This girl, I say, is a southerner, with spirit of the south in her being. She has fallen in love with a man of colored blood—fallen in love with Bennet—Truman Bennet."

Dr. Dennig sat back in his chair without a word as if stunned and gazed from the window across the campus arched over by stately elms of generations growth. Thus he sat for fully five minutes. Miss Gregory waited silently, the fingers of his hands touching as in the attitude of prayer. At the end of his meditations he turned to Miss Gregory, with:

"What would you have me do?" he finally asked. "Bennet is an estimable fellow, well liked, and would never be taken for one with colored blood in him. He is manly, too. I've watched him through his four years. Besides he finishes next month—graduates. We can't command him to cease loving the girl, if she cares for him. We can't expel him for that. It seems as if you must work on the

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 girl if you desire to break the match. That's your play, Miss Gregory."

Miss Gregory stamped her foot as she said:

"Call a faculty meeting and have him before it. Demand that he cease his attentions or suffer the penalty of not receiving his degree."

"But he's earned his degree," Dr. Dennig insisted.

"The faculty awards degrees. The faculty can withhold them for whatever purpose they see fit. It is within your right. Put it to a vote and you will see the faculty will bear me out," Miss Gregory still argued.

There was another long pause while Dr. Dennig studied the distant view across the campus. Finally he said, with a deep intake of breath through his teeth:

"I'll call the faculty meeting, if you'll come before them, state your case, make your own plea and then let them vote."

"I'll come—surely—yes," was the positive answer.

"But, I'll make this stipulation," Dr. Dennig persisted. "Bennet shall have his chance also."

"Is that necessary?" returned Miss Gregory with a feeling of misgiving.

"It is. He has committed no crime—and I don't believe the faculty will sustain you.—However, we'll see. I'm neutral," added Dr. Dennig raising his hands to emphasize the words.

"I'll vouch for the faculty.—Thank you, Dr. Dennig," Miss Gregory said with a positiveness she did not feel.

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 "I'll notify you of the meeting," said Dr. Dennig as the two parted at the door.

Miss Gregory was determined to see that she had her way and set about to canvass the members of the faculty with whom she was friendly, in effort to enlist them on her side. Those she won over, she pledged to her support without telling them what she wanted. "Just vote with me and for me at the meeting when the subject comes up," was what she asked them.

All unmindful of the storm brewing about their heads, conscious only of the fact that their love was mutual and growing stronger, Bennet and Lida contrived to meet for a few moments each day and filled up the remaining time of their existence writing to and thinking of each other. They lived only in the moment and their love, as is the way of youth. They had decided, each to return to their respective homes after school ended, inform their parents, then if objections arose to meet at some to be appointed place there to marry and start their wedded life. Bennet had already secured a commission to travel for a large business firm and it was planned to combine business with their honeymoon abroad.

The day of the faculty meeting, due to the activity and energy of Miss Gregory, found the session permeated with subdued curiosity and an air of mysterious tensity. Neighboring members viewed each other with wonderment, none knowing just what to expect. Dr. Dennig was as mystifying as possible, for instead of the usual smiling suavity of greeting, and the joking banter with which he was accus-

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 tomed to greet them as they joined him he was serious, sedate and preoccupied.

The professors gathered in the meeting room above the President's office, as was their usage, each taking his accustomed place, with Dean Sandager, aged and patriarchal, at the side of the President and the secretary of the faculty on the other. On either side down the long glass topped table extending the length of the room, remaining members of the faculty took their seats. The Dean of the Divinity School, Dr. Morris, another patriarch of the faculty sat at the end opposite the President.

As the President was about to call the meeting to order he gave the office messenger a note with instructions to deliver it immediately. With this he entered the faculty room and sat at his place. The air was full of expectancy. Every member of the faculty who had been bidden was present. All eyes focussed on Dr. Dennig. After a few moments the latter arose and said:

"Gentlemen, this is no meeting of the faculty in the regular sense of the word. I have called you here at the suggestion of another on a matter that may or may not concern the faculty, according to your viewpoint. This college seeks and has sought to produce men, real men, who, when they left our influence, would have had their ideas and morals so shaped as to stand with real men and lead in life. I have been asked to let you decide a question that I personally believe does not concern us. It has been argued that it is a question for the public good and on the question of that point alone I shall submit it to you."

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 Here Dr. Dennig stated the proposition that had been put to him by Miss Gregory, detailing the story. When he concluded he said:

"In order that you may judge and decide for yourselves I have asked both Miss Gregory and the other principal concerned to appear before you. I shall first call Miss Gregory."

With that he touched a bell at his elbow and Miss Gregory entered.

"Miss Gregory," Dr. Dennig continued, "I have laid the matter before the faculty and will allow you to present your case."

Miss Gregory then stepped to the table and after facing the gathering for a second, said:

"Gentlemen, I'll be brief and to the point. I am sorry to do this but feel it is my duty and that you will feel it your duty in the interest of all concerned to concur in what I shall ask you.

"Miss Gregory's school and this college have been neighbors, and I might say friendly neighbors for years. The pupils at my school and yours have formed many happy friendships, most of which have been fortunate. I have rejoiced in the close associations of my school and yours; of my students and yours. The reputation of my school has been built on its exclusiveness, the care exercised over the pupils, the training given them and the culture they absorb. Your college has been built on the success of your teaching and the principles you teach and the type of men you turn out. All that is admitted.

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 "There has arisen a rather unfortunate circumstance which we all owe it to ourselves to amend at no matter what sacrifice. I promise you that I shall exercise more care in the future. One of my pupils whose family and traditions bear me out in my action of opposition has unfortunately taken a fancy to one of your students whom she cannot marry and should not be allowed to marry. I don't want drastic action unless all other efforts fail. I have tried to dissuade the girl and have seemingly failed. I have tried to dissuade the young man in question and have failed. I appeal to you now, for aid. I would ask you gentlemen to summon the young man, impress upon him the enormity of the differences in his circumstances and hers, and assure him that should he persist he will not be allowed to graduate."

"Who is this young man?" Dean Sandager asked. The same question was on the tongue of several others.

"Truman Bennet."

"Bennet—Bennet, Bennet—Why he's all right," came from several sections of the room at the same time as professors recalled their contact with Bennet and his bearing in college. Miss Gregory's face flushed for a minute at the seeming hopelessness of her task.

"Do you mean to say?" she asked, leaning slightly over the table in her intensity, "that you don't know who and what he is, after four years spent with him? Don't you know that he is colored; that he has Negro blood in his veins? He can't be allowed to form an alliance with a southern girl of breeding and refinement such as Lida

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 Lauriston. You cannot allow it! You must not allow it! What will become of my school if such a thing happens?" Her voice was now raised almost to a shrill in her excitement. "This thing must not be."

"Perish the thought!" "Never, never!" "The fool! That's what comes of too much education!" "We'd lynch him in the south for such a thought even!" This last from one of the newer and younger members of the faculty who had come from one of the southern schools. About the table could be heard the other exclamations while some of the older heads and those who knew Bennet best either remained silent or voiced half-hearted approval.

The young man who spoke of lynching, Donald Armstrong, became so excited he arose in his seat and shaking his fist at the air, his face almost purple, exclaimed:

"The brute! I knew it! I knew it! I always knew it would never do to educate 'niggers.' We must preserve the white race pure. I knew if we allowed them to be educated the next thing they would be wanting to marry our daughters. I wouldn't let him graduate. I'd flunk him. I'd expel him for such uppishness. We know, in the south how to handle such. We know how to keep them in their places."

For a few moments there was a general hubbub, with everyone voicing opinions and trying to speak at once. When noises lessened, Dean Sandager, his white hair thrown back from his fine high serried forehead, stood, stroked his patriarchal beard which covered his white

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 shirt front, and pointing a deliberate finger at Armstrong, said:

"Hold on, Son, don't waste your breath yet. You're not in the south. I have been closely associated with this young man, Bennet, in the past four years, having been his adviser. I know his heart is clean, his soul white and his family good. If I had a daughter to trust to the care and keeping of a young man I know none to whom I would rather entrust her keeping than to Bennet. I'd be proud to have him as a son.

"I'm a man far along in years. I have watched this country grow; watched sentiments change and shift; watched events drift; I have learned, and I say with all the force within me, that prejudice based on color or race or religion is damnable and is the curse of the country.

"I am prejudiced against some men and women, but my prejudice is based on lack of character and morality, and culture. Prejudice on any other basis is damnable, narrow, and unjust. Besides, unless told I would not know that Bennet was of any race other than white. It is time we forgot races and saw men. It is time we quit pandering to the insincere or ignorant desires for caste distinctions.

"I have many excellent friends in the south. Most of them do not believe as you, Armstrong. And as for your kind it is best not to boast too violently of race purity. Your kind ought to be the last to talk that stuff when out of twelve million people you have spoiled the purity of more than four million by illicit and unwelcomed amalga-

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 mations. You should be the last to shout that shibboleth, Son. The last to shout it.

"I suggest that before we do anything for which we should entertain later regrets we have the young man himself before us. Hear his side of matter. I'm sure he'll give a good account of himself."

Armstrong subsided and there were shouts and hand-clappings of approval when Dean Sandager had finished. As the latter seated himself, Dr. Dennig turned to him with:

"I have already summoned the young man and he ought to be here." Another tap of the bell, a hurried message and the door opened as Truman Bennet stepped before the faculty.

Dean Sandager, his heart yearning like a father's to the young man, stood as Bennet entered. Dr. Dennig, the president also rose. The others remained seated. Dean Sandager stepped to Bennet's side and escorted him to the table, the place where Miss Gregory had stood, she having retired to one of the chairs against the wall. Before Dean Sandager seated himself again he rested his hand on Bennet's shoulders as if to impart courage for the ordeal.

Dr. Dennig lost no time in coming to the point. "Bennet," he said, "You are faced with a very serious predicament. You are summoned here to say whether or not you shall be allowed to graduate with your class or be expelled from college. Upon your answer depends it whether the faculty votes for the one or the other. You can save yourself from trouble if you will here and before us all

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 give us your word that you'll not see Miss Lauriston any more; that you will not communicate with her or in any way seek to associate with her.

"I may also say that your further association with her is distasteful to Miss Gregory, to some members of the faculty and would be decidedly so to the young lady's family. In fact a persistence in your attitude will mean not only a faculty vote but trouble, endless trouble for you both. What have you to say?"

Bennet listened to the words then with one hand ministerially thrust into his bosom where the coat was unbuttoned, with a voice so passion-spent that his words came with almost percussive explosiveness spoke. There was the agony of a tortured soul in every syllable, having sensed immediately the import of his summons. As he faced them with the confidence of youth, yet the gravity of age, he said:

"Gentlemen of the Faculty:—As I read your faces, hear your charges and study the gravity of your countenances I am led to ask myself whether I'm among Christians or heathens, leaders or slaves, friends or foes. I had thought that during my four years here I was among friends.

"This that you propose to do, in fact already have done, might easily be catalogued among the crimes of the ages. You have set yourselves to the task of preventing the most moral, the most human, most natural act of life, the perfectly cosmic mating of two souls.

"You threaten me with expulsion from your school. Not only that. You seek to deprive me of something

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 I've earned and paid for in cash and honest effort. You may deny me certification of my accomplishment. You cannot withdraw that which I have absorbed under these old and stately elms and in these class rooms and under the guardianship of those of you whose lives are worthy of emulation.

"Therefore your proposal if carried out would fail of accomplishment except as it branded you as hide-bound, narrow and bigoted. Your action would but brand you as inhuman, unChristian—unmoral. That I differ from you in blood you may claim. Yet how false that claim. The blood of all men is human. Complexion is external. There is as royal blood in my veins as in yours—as in the best of you. The blood of kings pulses from my heart; the blood of the King of life and death; of God our King courses through my veins. Wherein are you more royal than I? How long is America to dwell in the gloom of prejudice? How long are men of thought and leadership to allow blind caste bigotry to shape our common destinies?

"I want my diploma as a right fully earned; as a matter of justice; as a matter of law. I've earned it by study, by expenditures, by loyalty. As for the halting of my course; the turning aside from my purpose; repudiating of my pledged word, first halt you the tides; reshape the course of day through night; still the wheels of the Universe, yet only death shall rob me of my will to,—right to love the one I love.—Unless it be the lady herself.

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 "This breast of mine knows what a gem she is." He waved his hand defiantly. "Keep your diploma, deny me, if you will, the honor of standing with my classmates and receiving certification in public at your hands. You cannot deny me my right to love."

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For a few moments after Bennet ceased speaking, the silence was overwhelming. Everyone present seemed to be holding his breath and gazing at the speaker as if transfixed. Bennet stood facing them, his head thrown back, not so much in an attitude of defiance as of waiting for the storm to break about his head for he expected to be bombarded with argument and possible threats and vituperation. Tears filled the eyes of Dean Sandager as pride in the manliness of the speech filled his heart. He had formed a love for Bennet that was almost that of a father for a son.

When Bennet had waited, as he thought sufficiently long, he turned and was about to walk from the table. A voice halted him. It was that of Professor Armstrong.

"Bennet," Truman turned to face the speaker. "A Negro is a Negro and never can be a white man. That's the law in my country. You—"

No one ever knew just what he would have said for Dean Sandager raised his hand for silence and uttered just one word. It came like a sharp and cutting crash of lightning, without the thunder. "Stop!" With the word there blazed a menacing anger in his eyes. To Bennet he turned in a kindly soothing voice, said: "You may go, Son." Dr. Dennig also seemed to recover himself and added, "Yes, go."

As the door closed, Dean Sandager arose, deliberately, slowly and stroked his beard. "I come from New England

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 stock," he said. "My people always taught me to respect manhood and character. I know no prejudices except that based on personal dislike because a man's heart is black through lack of principle. The boy is right. As right as God is right. If we do such an unGodly thing as is proposed this institution will rot and crumble to decay, for it will have proven false to every principle on which it is built. It will-belie every truth it has taught. And if we do vote for such a thing I'll quit my post for the lecture platform and will tell the world what hypocrites we are.

"What have we to do with the personal affairs of one who has broken no college rule? Do we want to brand ourselves, as he says, as unChristian? I think not. I for one will take part in no such action, and if it comes to a vote I'll vote no, though I vote alone."

"Here too, here too, here too," came from three or four of the older men. Several of the younger professors and instructors remained silent. Three or four, however, among them Armstrong, cried: "I'll quit before I'll stand for it. Yes, yes, yes."

Dr. Dennig rapped for order. After securing silence he said: "Well, Gentlemen, it is a sorry moment but I'll put the matter to a vote. I would say, however, before we undertake it that whatever our action let us decide it to be secret and not for the public."

"If the board does right, I'll agree, otherwise I won't," stated Dean Sandager. "I have lived right. According to my belief in Christ and Christianity. I'll die that way.

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 And I'll never give in to foolish, narrow prejudice so unjust as color prejudice is," he added.

"Why the whole world is prejudiced against black men," shouted Armstrong. "Why blame prejudice on the South; every section is prejudiced against him."

"Yes, the world may be prejudiced but that doesn't make it right. And I deny that all the world is prejudiced. To the shame of some Americans they have tried to make it so—but not all—and it will never be so. God never intended it to be so."

"You northerners are prejudiced, just as we are," retorted Professor Armstrong.

"Those who are, are honestly so, even though they have been misled by your propaganda and lies. You of the south are hypocrites."

"You lie."

Dean Sandager's eyes blazed. "Young man," he said, "I'm old and can't resent your insult in the only proper way, therefore I'll control myself. I say, however, I do not lie and leave it to the fair minds of the remainder of the board to say if I do.

"I say, southerners are hypocrites in their prejudice. We of the north who are misled into evidences of prejudice have been honestly misled and blinded by propaganda and false utterances of one kind or another or some low—passion has been persuaded. When we are thus misled and form a prejudice we live up to that prejudice by avoiding contact with the man or race against whom we feel the prejudice. You of the south shout race inferiority,

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 and prejudice and yet have all sorts of associations, legitimate and illegitimate with those against whom you are prejudiced.

"If I am prejudiced against a man I want nothing to do with him; neither his service nor his presence. You of the South shout prejudice but want to hold onto that against which you are prejudiced; want to keep it near you; want it to nurse you, feed you, support you, toil for you, create your wealth, minister to your wants higher and lower. He on such prejudice and fie on you Professor Armstrong with your hypocritical protests. Why, all your south is you owe to the Negro, even your education."

Armstrong had arisen from his seat and was walking menacingly toward the Dean by this time. Several of the men sought to halt him. He swung them aside and strode on. Dean Sandager stood like an indignant deity.

"Let him come," he said. "Let him come. I can take care of myself." Armstrong was withered by the fire of the old man's eyes and halted when within a few feet of the elder man. When he halted, Dean Sandager continued:

"Yes, Armstrong, you're a hypocrite and a coward."

The two men glared at each other for a minute. Everyone was breathless with pent up emotion. Even Dr. Dennig seemed petrified into inaction. Finally he recovered himself enough to rap excitedly with his fist on the table for order. "Gentlemen, remember. Be dignified. Be dignified."

In order to prevent further clashing he hurriedly added:

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 "We'll vote by secret ballot on the question. The secretary will prepare the ballots."

"Vote secretly," exploded Dean Sandager. "Vote secretly? My God. Quit ye like men! Quit ye like men!" he urged, using the Biblical quotation he had often used in exhorting his classes during lectures.

Despite his urging the secret ballots were prepared and placed at each man's side. After a sufficient time had been allowed for judgment, Dr. Dennig asked: "Has everybody voted?" He was assured that they had and ballots were collected, placed at his side. The secretary counted them off. There were twenty-four men present and twenty-four had voted. The secretary read off the votes aloud.

They were: "Yes, yes, no, no, no, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, no," the count was becoming agonizing. The secretary still droned the count. No,count. "No [sic] no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, no, no, no, yes." Audible sighs were heard all about the table as the count ended. It was found that Bennet's diploma would not be withheld.

"Thank God!" breathed Dean Sandager. "God is a Just God and Right has won."

"I resign," shouted Armstrong. "Damned if I'll stay at any such college."

"You were just a little ahead of me, young man. I was about to ask for your resignation," quietly offered Dr. Dennig. Dean Sandager turned and grasped the President's hand, shaking it warmly. There were tears of nervous joy in his eyes. He could not speak. Dr. Dennig,

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 however, returned the handshake with: "You're right. I thank you for showing me the way."

Dean Sandager shook his head. "No. It's you. I never doubted you, Dennig."

The faculty meeting adjourned in confusion immediately. Dean Sandager and Dr. Dennig leaving the room together, others of the faculty departing in groups discussing the affair and its result. Professor Armstrong was loud in his denunciations of all who voted against him.

No one gave heed to him, however, as he walked from the room grumbling: "I won't stay with a lot of cowards and weak sentimentalists. I'll go where real white men live."

Despite the efforts of the faculty to keep the matter secret, Professor Rumor, head of one of the most important departments of any college group, soon had the story whispered about and discussed from various angles. Members of Bennet's class, however much they knew of the affair, liked him so well they never mentioned the subject in his presence.

Events moved rapidly toward commencement and the attending functions. When Miss Gregory found that she could not prevent Bennet and Lida meeting or communicating, she was at her wit's end. She hesitated to write south to Lida's father, fearing that such publicity would follow the impetuous old southerner that her school would be injured. She hoped that separation for the summer would serve to cool the friendship. The more she thought of this possibility the more she became convinced that this

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 would be the fact. How little she knew the strength of the bond between the two or their natures!

Instead of thoughts of separation, these two, in their moments of meeting, were planning how to continue their communications and finally their plans for wedding. Each resolved to return home at the end of their work and inform their parents.

"Do you think that wise," Bennet asked, as they strolled under the elms of the East side a few days before commencement, happily reverting to the topic always uppermost in their minds.

"It's the only fair thing to do, dear," Lida returned. "Daddy may rave, for a time, but" (with the confidence of youth) "I'll make him see it my way. I know I will."

"I don't know, Blossom Girl," Bennet replied, using the pet name which always awakened tenderness in him most deeply as he addressed her. She had always seemed to him like some fresh blooming wood blossom, he explained when he first addressed her in that term. "Old men are rather positive at times. And I'm afraid harm will come to you. Why go south at all? Why not get married and go to my home then go away as we had planned, writing the news to your father."

"That's not a bit like you, Truman. It wouldn't be fair. And I want to be fair. I will be fair in all I do. I love you with all my heart and always will but I love my father, too. Remember he's been father and mother to me for a long time. I'll be as fair with him as I will always be with you."

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 "Bless your heart," he breathed tenderly. "Have it your way. I feel though, that we are in for trouble under that plan."

"Why let trouble bother us? You have my heart," she shyly answered.

"Well," he yielded, "I'll let you go but you must return to me in a month or sooner. You know we sail on my commission shortly after and I'm to take my best beloved bride with me."

"I'll go home and see my folks then meet you and be married. I'll also tell my people of our plans."

Under the elms they strolled arm in arm unmindful of all else save themselves till the warning clock on the First Meeting House told of the hour to retire.

"Oh, I didn't know it was so late," exclaimed Lida as she counted the strokes of the midnight bell. Leaning more heavily on Bennet's arm, she indicated a wish to return and the two retraced their steps.

As they reached the steps of the school the two stood facing each other. A young moon was shyly peeping, through the heavy branches, on the stillness of the scene.

"God has richly blessed me. My heart is full. I'll wade through death itself for you, Little Girl." There was that vibration in his voice and such seriousness in his face that Lida almost felt a pain of happiness in her heart.

"I like you best, when you say things like that," she breathed tenderly. "They seem so real and true. You don't know how happy you make me." The great mother impulse in the girl caused her to cling closer to Bennet

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 and to reach her hands up to his face and caress his cheeks.

"He has blessed me, too, Man of Mine." She blushed as she uttered the words and realized what she had unconsciously said. The feeling in her heart had forced them to her lips, the woman in her overcoming the maidenliness. She was so confused she kissed him suddenly and ran lightly up the steps and was gone.

Bennet watched her retreating form lift like a vision up the steps, and stood waiting for her to turn and look at him again. He stood so for a few moments and when she failed to look back, bared his head, lifted his face to the sky and said, fervently: "God grant that I shall be always worthy of her—that I'll always make her happy."

He turned to leave, his soul still in the universe of his love. Lida reached her room and looked from her window. He failed to turn but she blew him a kiss from the tips of her fingers then sank by the window sill where tears of sheer happiness filled her eyes.

Commencement day found the college yard filled with hundreds of shouting, laughing, handshaking graduates of the famous old school, all returned to do honors to their alma mater and to renew friendships as well as to give accounts of their activities since the previous gathering.

Campus was decorated as only college youth, with unlimited imagination can decorate for their friends and relatives on festive occasions. Fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers, all proud of their individual candidate for degree strolled about the grounds, meeting friends of other years or renewing acquaintances formed since arrival.

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 In their caps and gowns the candidates for degrees were assembling under the guidance of their chief marshal and aids. The scene was one of kaleidoscopic, ever changing colorations. The band was discoursing lively tempting music; here and there couples unable to resist the appeal were swaying to the strains. Prominent among those gathered were the parents and family of Bennet.

The father, a dignified, kindly-eyed man, with a smiling, genial face, hair turned iron gray, walked erect, head lifted, about the yard, his wife, a delightfully motherly soul on his arm. Behind them or at their side, never still, fluttered a daughter, laughingly waving to acquaintances, newly made or those of longer standing, a charming bit of human vitality, a bit chic and yet wholesome. This was certainly a marked family.

Mrs. Bennet was rather grave in her serenity and seemed preoccupied with pride in the popularity of her son, her eyes following him everywhere as he moved from one group of friends to another. This was a proud moment for her as well.

As they walked about, Bennet hailed them in passing, with:

"Hello, father. Having a good time?"

The elder man only smiled. Bennet lifted the serene face of his mother and kissed her cheeks.

"Mother I'm happy today." His happines showing in his face.

"You ought to be, my son. This is a day I've long prayed to come to you. Make the most of it."

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 "Yes, boy, it's your day," the father added. "Don't mind us. We'll get along."

"I've only one other wish, Truman," Mrs. Bennet offered in dignified tenderness.

"What's that, mother?" he questioned as he placed an arm about her waist.

"That is to see you happily married. When that comes then I'll be completely happy," she replied looking steadfastly at him in her maternal way.

"I like that," chimed in the sister. "Where do I fit in this merry scheme. It seems not at all." At this all laughed, while the mother turned to her saying, "Your time'll come soon enough. Soon enough."

"Mother, I'm happy and I hope to be happily married soon."

The mother's face clouded for a fleeting moment, then she said, "Well, all I ask is that she is a good girl and that you are well mated."

"I'll tell you all about her when we get home."

"Got her all picked out?" laughed the sister, clapping her hands. "Oh,—how romantic. Won't the wedding be fun?" at the conjuring up of which she laughed again and clapped her hands.

Before they could say more the band began to sound assembly call for the parade to chapel for awarding of degrees. Slowly the procession marched across the campus to the half-sad-march music heard from year to year. The girls of Miss Gregory's school had already been seated in a special gallery of the chapel as invited guests. In this

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 group was Lida, her eyes strained for the sight of but one, her heart.

This was her first attendance at such an affair and the experience was thrilling. Her eyes sought Bennet and once having located him she saw no one else during the entire program. After the orations and the distribution of the degrees the assembly was dismissed. Truman sought Lida as the crowd passed out and laid the diploma, so hardly won, in her hands. Without being noticed the girl gracefully and with a feeling of tenderness that it belonged to him, raised it to her lips.

There was time for no more. Bennet was called to his class for the return march to the campus and Lida rushed to her room to depart for her home. It had been arranged for her to leave immediately, Miss Gregory wishing to get her started for her southern home as quickly as possible. It was only because Lida had asserted with positiveness that she would not go till after the commencement exercises that Miss Gregory gave in to that extent. She had wished the girl to leave before commencement was over, in order to separate her as soon as possible from her lover. Lida won her way, however, to the extent of this compromise in plans made for her. All this had been explained to Bennet the night before and was understood.

When Lida reached her room she carefully packed the diploma in her trunk where it would be protected and with time to say adieu to but few of the girls remaining, was whirled away to catch the Federal express for the South.

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Where all was festivity and lightness yesterday, today there is solemnity, silence and gloom. This was true of the campus at the university after graduation. Where one day the lawns were alive with throbbing, laughing, happy humanity, the next the place is deserted, students having departed for their homes or summer activities, their parents returned to their homes and the buildings closed.

In the midst of a scene like this an express team drove up to one of the dormitories and with clatter and clutter, the driver, with his helper, bundled trunks and bags into his team. As the last piece of luggage was placed on the team, Professor Armstrong stepped out of the building to pay the driver and get his check.

At that moment Dr. Tansey turned a corner, coming from the gymnasium where he had been winding up his work for the year preparatory to departing also.

"Hello, Armstrong," was his greeting. "Where're you bound? Looks as if," nodding in the direction of the baggage on the team, "you're going on a long journey, as they say." This said with a laugh.

"Yes, it's a long journey. I don't intend to come back. I'm going South where white men are white men and stand by one another," he vowed.

"Oh, bosh, can't you forget that Bennet episode? How some people nurse a grudge! The boy's all right. I know him," Dr. Tansey exclaimed impatiently.

"You're another of those soft hearted sentimentalists.

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