arm.

Old Caroline groaned at the slightest exertion, then, as she tossed her
black head, she caught a glimpse of old Captain Renfrew.

She halted abruptly in her restlessness, stared at the old gentleman,
wet her dry lips with a queer brown-furred tongue.

"Is dat you, Mars' Milt?" she gasped in feeble astonishment. A moment
later she guessed the truth. "I s'pose you had to bring de doctor. 'Fo'
Gawd, Mars' Milt--" She lay staring, with the covers rising and falling
as she gasped for breath. Her feverish eyes shifted back and forth
between the grim old gentleman and the tall, broad-shouldered brown man
at the foot of her bed. She drew a baggy black arm from under the cover.

"Da' 's Peter, Mars' Milt," she pointed. "Da' 's Peter, my son. He--he
use' to be my son 'fo' he went off to school; but sence he come home, he
been a-laughin' at me." Tears came to her eyes; she panted for a moment,
then added: "Yeah, he done marked his mammy down fuh a nigger, Mars'
Milt. Whut I thought wuz gwine be sweet lays bitter in my mouf." She
worked her thick lips as if the rank taste of her sickness were the very
flavor of her son's ingratitude.

A sudden gasp and twist of her body told Nan that the old woman was
again seized with a spasm. The neighbor woman took swift control, and
waved out Peter and old Mr. Renfrew, while she and the doctor aided the
huge negress.

The two evicted men went into Peter's room and shut the door. Peter,
unnerved, groped, and presently found and lighted a lamp. He put it down