"When he is blotted out, his fortune should go where it can remedy the
evil of his life."

"He may have been working for some good cause," quietly put in Kingsley.
"Should not that cause get the advantage of his 'ability and power,' as
you have called it, even though he was mistaken, or perverted, or cruel?
Shouldn't an average be struck between the wrong his 'ability and power'
did and the right that same 'ability and power' was intended to advance?"

She turned with admiration to Kingsley. "How well you argue--I remember
you did years ago. I hate slavery and despise and hate slave-dealers and
slave-keepers, but I would be just, too, even to Kingsley Bey. But what
cause, save his own comfort and fortune, would he be likely to serve?
Do you know him?" she added eagerly.

"Since I can remember," answered Kingsley, looking through the field-
glasses at a steamer coming up the river.

"Would you have thought that he would turn out as he has?" she asked
simply. "You see, he appears to me so dark and baleful a figure that I
cannot quite regard him as I regard you, for instance. I could not
realise knowing such a man."

"He had always a lot of audacity," Kingsley replied slowly, "and he
certainly was a schemer in his way, but that came from his helpless
poverty."

"Was he very poor?" she asked eagerly.

"Always. And he got his estates heavily encumbered. Then there were