a suspicion seemed horrible to me.  But Reverdy went on to show me why it might be entertained.  This remote country, lacking in opportunity for legitimate expression, held secrets of bestial and gross departures from nature.  Here was Zoe, young and beautiful.  What did our kindred blood have to do with the matter of my desire?  I had not grown up with her, and it would be natural enough if I did not feel toward her as a brother.  Incest was common enough around here.  As to Lamborn, Zoe was a nigger, and the spoil of any one who wanted her.  These were some of the things that Reverdy hinted at.  If I prosecuted Lamborn, the countercharge would be made that I had been intimate with Zoe myself.  If she had a child I would be proclaimed its father, especially if I raised an issue, and tried to fix the paternity upon Lamborn.  If I went to see the state’s attorney and asked him to act, there was danger that he would not wish to do so, because the present state’s attorney was about to lose the office.  He would not wish to start a social hostility that would react upon himself.  In fact, Douglas was now trying to supplant him.  I was known as a friend of Douglas’.  Perhaps I would be trying to involve the state’s attorney in an unpopular prosecution.  If the prosecuting attorney refused to act that refusal would be known, and credit might be given to any reports that might arise that Zoe was mine before she was Lamborn’s, if she ever was his.  And if I resented the prosecuting attorney’s refusal to act, then I might be accused of acting with Douglas in his ambition to get the office.  Above all, under the law of Illinois, Zoe could not testify against Lamborn, a white man.  Thus, in any prosecution that was to be made, evidence independent of Zoe’s word had to be procured.  Where was such evidence?  That really settled the whole matter.  But I had gone through the whole range of deliberation before finding out that Zoe’s word would not be received in court.

But why had Reverdy not warned me against taking Zoe to live with me?  There was the matter, too, of my equal division of the estate with Zoe.  I had done this with the purest of motives.  Now the edge of it was turned against me.  For why would I surrender so much when I did not have to?

What was I now to do?  Should I send Zoe away?  Should I keep her in my household and let the tongues wag, as they were doing, or clatter if Zoe should have a child?  The secret would be out soon.  Lamborn would be sure to betray the fact that he had captured Zoe.  There seemed nothing to do then but to settle down with British tenacity to live it out, and brave whatever came to me out of the complications.  I was sure of the friendship of Reverdy and Sarah.

With these reflections I went back to the hut.  Zoe was still in tears.  She asked me if she had not better go away.  If I would give her some of her money she would leave and never come back.  “No,” I said.  “I am going to see you through, Zoe.  We will face this out together; only do you consult me about what to do, and help me to stand by you.”