The Shadow. Mary White Ovington

to the owls and he had mimicked them. The thought of him gave her courage and she went on, trembling and determined, until the end of the path was reached and she could look upon the open yard and home.

      Then she did hear people coming. Off to the right were voices, a girl's loud, coarse laughter and a man's rough tones. She crouched down that her white dress might not show among the trees. The figures came into sight, Maranthy, with old Jim, an ill-natured, ugly fellow, known to neglect his wife and children. The two walked boldly over the white sand, and as Hertha watched them the man caught the girl and hugged her hard. She laughed and swore, pushing him away, and then, with an animal-like motion, sidled up to him. Together they moved across the yard, his arm tight about her waist, while she, lolling on his shoulder and calling on Christ and God to damn him, gave him a smacking kiss upon the mouth.

      The room was reached at last. Hertha tore off her clothes, slipped into her nightdress, and lay, a little huddled mass of shame and woe, upon her bed. Her feet and hands were icy cold, her teeth were chattering, but her brain was on fire. Pride and shame took equal possession of her spirit. She had risked everything, she had been ready to give everything, only to find herself despised. Ellen was right, her place belonged with her own race. She was black, and she must never again trust the white race that felt for her only an amused tolerance or scorn. She was black, and hers was the black man's table, the black man's home, the black man's burial-place. Never again would she think to enter the white man's world.

      And the beauty of her love was wholly gone. The courage with which her lover had armed her had disappeared, and her affection, that had seemed to her something pure and delicate, almost holy, became a common lust that this man had awakened and then, disgusted at his choice of anything so cheap, had cast aside. Nothing was left to her of the glory and gladness of the morning.

      But while shame and hurt pride swept over her, there came in their wake an inexpressible relief. She was safe from harm. She was not like Marantha but just Hertha Williams who had slipped out of her room to see the stars and then slipped back again. She was safe here, in Tom's room, at home.

      Kneeling beside her bed she prayed for strength, strength to be good though she was young and pretty and colored. She could not see ahead, probably it would be wise to go away somewhere, she wished it might be near Tom—it was hard to be alone; but she must never again trust the white man's world.

      Back in her bed terror crept over her once more and she shook with fear; but at length, in sheer exhaustion, she lay quiet, and when the first morning light entered the room it found her asleep.