no more. She would never see Camilla again, she who recalled Camilla's
look of anguish as though they still stood side by side. Her heart
filled with unspeakable thankfulness that she had put her arms around
Camilla's neck at that supreme last moment. That had not been Judith's
doing. That had come from her own heart. Unconsciously she had laid
the first stone in the wall of self-respect which might in the future
fortify her against her weaknesses.

She stood looking up blindly at the house, shivering again at the
recollection of its echoing, empty silence. The moment was one she
never forgot. Standing there in that commonplace backyard, staring up
at a house like any one of forty near her, she felt her heart grow
larger. In that moment, tragedy, mystery, awe, and pity laid their
shadowy fingers on her shining head.




CHAPTER IX

THE END OF CHILDHOOD


That afternoon a couple of children who came to play in the Marshall
orchard brought news that public opinion, after the fashion of that
unstable weathercock, was veering rapidly, and blowing from a wholly
unexpected quarter. "My papa says," reported Gretchen Schmidt, who
never could keep anything to herself, even though it might be by no
means to her advantage to proclaim it--"my papa says that he thinks
the way American people treats colored peoples is just fierce; and he