Chapter XLIII: The Dreary Night Ride

Her brain is sick with thinking,
Her heart is almost sinking,
She cannot look before her,
On the evil haunted way;
Uphold her, oh! restore her!
Thou Lord of life and day.—MONCTON MILNES.

A few minutes after three o’clock, the carriage containing Drusilla and her attendant stopped before the office of the Washington and Western Virginia line of stage coaches.

In great anxiety, Drusilla drew up the carriage curtain and looked out of the window.

There was no sign of a coach near the office.

“It is gone, it is gone,” she cried, clasping her hands in despair. “It is gone and I know I can never reach the place in time to save him!”

“Now don’t you take on so, ma’am, that’s a dear child. The coach mayn’t have come yet, much less gone,” said mammy, soothingly.

Meanwhile the porters about the office had come forward and commenced unstrapping the baggage from behind.

Leo jumped off his seat and came and opened the carriage door and let down the steps.

“Is it any use to alight, Leo? Is not the coach gone?” sighed the lady.

“Lor’, no, ma’am—it haven’t gone out of the stable yet. We’ve lots of time.”

“Oh, thank heaven!” exclaimed Drusilla, in a tone of great relief.

Mammy gathered up her carpet bag, umbrella and big shawl—all carried for her mistress’s accommodation and not for her own—and prepared to alight.

“Here, boy, you let me get out first, so I can help the madam,” she said, handing a part of her paraphernalia to her son, and then clumsily but safely tumbling herself down to the sidewalk.

“Take care, mammy,” said the boy, when all the danger was over.

“Now, that job’s done! I’m allus thankful when I can get out’n a carriage without hurting of myself or breaking anything. And now, honey, let me help _you_ out. Be careful, child,” she said, holding her arms forth to receive her charge.

“Stand aside, please,” smiled Drusilla; and then, rather than avail herself of mammy’s dangerous assistance, she alighted without aid, and immediately entered the office, calling Leo to attend her.

Seeing a lady’s waiting-room back of the office, she gave her purse to Leo, telling him to go to the clerk and secure their seats; but then, as the sudden thought that they might all be already taken flashed into her mind, she hurried after the boy up to the clerk’s desk and eagerly inquired:

“Have you any seats left in the coach now about to start?”

“Yes, Miss; lots. We have nine inside, and only one taken.”

“Then I will take two at once,” said Drusilla, with another sigh of relieved anxiety.

“Four, master, if you please; we’ll take four. _All_ the back seats and one of the others,” said mammy.

“What is that for?” hastily whispered Drusilla.

“’Cause, child, you can’t sit up all night. You must lie down, and you must have all the back seats to lie on like a sofy, you know,” whispered mammy, in reply.

“How many seats will you take, Miss?” inquired the clerk, who had looked on, pen in hand, while this low-toned consultation was going forward.

“Four,” answered Drusilla. “And my servant here will settle for them. Come, nurse, leave Leo to finish this business, and attend me to the ladies’ room.”

“Yes, honey, in one minute. I just want to stop here and see the _back_ seats secured all for you, all together, to lie down on. ’Twould be no use for you to have three seats ’stributed all about the coach, for how could you ’cline on them? Leave me to ’range for you, ma’am.”

“Very well, nurse, do as you think best,” said Drusilla, passing on to the back room.

There was a side window, opening upon an alley leading to the stables where the coaches were kept.

Drusilla perceived this, and seated herself by the window to watch for the coming of the night coach. She was in such a state of feverish anxiety, that she could not rest. True, two great causes of uneasiness were removed. She was in time for the coach, and she could get seats enough; but still, in her eager impatience, she could not be at peace, and she longed to be on her journey, to feel herself whirled swiftly onward towards the place she was so ardently desirous to reach.

Presently she was joined by mammy, who dropped her fat self down upon a chair, making it creak under her weight, and said, triumphantly:

“Well, honey, it’s all right, and you’ll travel as easy as if you was a lying on your own sofy! I left that boy Leo to watch the luggidge.”

“I’m very much obliged to you; but at the same time, if the coach should be full, and any one should want two of my places, they must have them,” said Drusilla.

“Must they? What’s the use o’ our paying for them, if it wasn’t to keep out all ’truders that _did_ come? If the coach wasn’t _going_ to be full, we needn’t a paid for no extra seats, seeing as we might a had ’em for nothing, ma’am. And don’t you think so much of other people. Think a little more of yourself, ma’am. Take a _little_ bit of pity on yourself, which you never does, though the Lord knows you needs it.”

Mammy’s discourse was interrupted by music as delightful to the eager ears of Drusilla as the sublimest strains of Handel—the rumbling of the stage-coach as it rolled out of the stable yard, and whirled around the corner and drew up before the office door.

Drusilla was on her feet in an instant.

“Now don’t be in such a hurry, ma’am. You be quiet. Bless you, it will be some time yet before it starts. They’ve got all the luggidge to put up yet. Leo, he’ll call us when it’s time to get in.”

With a sigh Drusilla dropped into her seat. Moments seemed hours, and hours months to her, until she could reach old Lyon Hall and prevent the consummation of her Alick’s meditated crime.

At length the long wished for signal came. Leo looked into the room, touched his hat, and said:

“Coach ready, ma’am.”

Drusilla arose in haste and excitement.

Leo loaded himself with the light luggage.

Mammy drew her big blanket shawl about her, and so they went out of the office.

“Leo, my good boy, take great care of yourself and your sister, and of the house and the animals, while I am gone,” said the lady.

“Yes, ma’am; you may trust me for that,” answered the boy, very earnestly.

“And Leo, mind, go to the office every day; and if you find letters for me, put them in the directed and stamped envelopes I gave you, and post them with your own hand—do you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, and will be sure to remember,” said Leo, almost weeping.

She shook hands with her servant, and sent her love by him to Pina, and bade him good-bye.

In another moment Drusilla and her attendant were in the coach—the only passengers there.

Drusilla sat reclining in the corner of the back seat, but mammy, who had not yet seated herself, was fussing about, stowing away such portable luggage as they had brought in their hands.

“There, honey!” she said, as she placed a carpet bag in the other corner of the seat, where her lady sat, and spread a soft shawl doubled over it, “there, that will be a tolerable pillow for you when you want to lay down. And here’s another shawl that’ll do to spread over you. And I reckon I might’s well take the lunching basket and umberella on to the seat with me. And, dear knows, it looks as if we was agoing to have all the coach to ourselves, any way; so we had no call to pay for so many seats we might a had for nothing.”

While mammy rambled on in this manner, apparently for no other purpose than the pleasure of hearing the sound of her own voice, Drusilla sat gazing out of the window at her own pretty little carriage, with her faithful boy perched upon the coachman’s seat. Poor Leo was waiting to see his beloved mistress off before leaving the spot.

“And now let me see—whar shall I put this ’ere bundle so I won’t forget it? And here, ma’am, you better take this purty little reticule o’ yours in with you, ’cause——”

“Nurse,” said Drusilla, drawing in her head, “you had better sit down and be still. The coach is about to start.”

“Yes, ma’am, so I will, soon’s ever I find a convenient place for these gum shoes in case we have to get out in the wet, ’cause you see, honey—”

The sudden starting of the coach stopped mammy’s oration short by jerking her forward upon her hands and knees.

“Lor’ a massy upon me! This is a pretty beginning, isn’t it now? if it’s all agoing to be like this!” grumbled mammy, as she gathered herself up, and reeled to and fro with the swinging action of the coach before she could recover her equilibrium and take her seat.

Drusilla, who was looking out of the window, and waving her hand in a last adieu to her poor devoted servant, did not perceive mammy’s summersault or her complaints.

The coach swung on at a fearful rate until it reached Fourteenth street, where it stopped at the great hotel there.

“I s’pects here’s where they’re gwine to pick up the other passenger, which sorry enough am I for it as anybody else should be intruding upon us,” said mammy, folding her arms and sitting up as if she had been in her own private equipage.

But Drusilla lay back in her corner, not even caring enough about her unknown fellow-passenger to turn her eyes towards the sidewalk.

A tall young man, wrapped in a dark cloak, with its collar turned up around his face, and wearing a cap pulled low over his brow, came out of the hotel, followed by a porter with some luggage.

The luggage was put into the boot behind. The young man climbed up on top.

“Oh, a outside passenger, after all, thank goodness,” said mammy, reposing herself cautiously back upon the cushions to avoid another jar as the horses started.

The coach thundered down Fourteenth street south, and onward until it reached the foot of the Long Bridge, where it slackened speed, as “the law directs.”

Ah, Heaven! what pleasing, painful memories were awakened in the poor child’s mind and heart by the sight of this old bridge.

Upon just such a day and hour as this she had crossed it for the first time. Then as now, the gorgeous crimson rays of the afternoon sun blazed down upon the river, and the wintry wooded shores were reflected in deep shadows along the reddened waters. Then as now, the scene was transfigured by the hour into supernal beauty and glory.

But _then_ she was a newly made and blessed bride, seated by her husband’s side and going to share his home and bless his life.

Scarcely eleven months had passed, and now, now she was recrossing the same river, gazing on the same scene, at the same hour,—a deserted wife though an expectant mother—a nearly heart-broken woman because an accusing spirit, going to confront her husband, and confound his criminal plans. And at this hour on the morrow, where should she be? At Old Lyon Hall, bringing exposure and shame upon her guilty but still dear Alick—bringing mortification and sorrow to his expectant young bride—spreading consternation and gloom among the gay wedding guests. Could she bear to do this? But perhaps at this hour to-morrow she might be dead and “past her pain,” for who could say whether she would have strength to live through the terrors of the scene she was so resolved to brave?

Her mournful reverie was interrupted by mammy. The slow motion of the coach was favorable to conversation, and mammy loved to let her tongue run.

“You see that sunset, don’t you, ma’am?” asked the old woman, pointing to where the sun was slowly sinking behind some long black clouds that lay along the summits of the western hills.

“Yes, I see them.”

“That means bad weather, ma’am. All the good Indy summer goes down with that sun, ma’am. You may take my ’sperience for that. We gwine to have rain and wind, and may be snow and sleet. For my part I pray to the Lord as we may reach our journey’s end before it comes too severe. When does you expect to get there, ma’am?”

“Some time to-morrow afternoon or evening; I do not exactly know the hour.”

The coach reached the western terminus of the bridge, passed quietly through it, and then rapidly increasing its speed, thundered onward over the rough old turnpike road.

Trees, houses, farms, forests flew past as the coach whirled onward up hill and down dale, until it reached Alexandria.

It drew up in the midst of the old town, before its office, took the address of the single passenger for whom it was directed to call, changed horses for a fresh start, and swung around into Duke street.

What was it here that suddenly aroused Drusilla from her painful absorption in her own troubled thoughts?

The coach drew up before the house in which she had been married!

She let down her veil, and, growing rapidly red and pale with excitement, looked out.

Soon the door opened, and the young minister—the very one who had performed her marriage ceremony—came out, carpet bag in hand, and shawl over his shoulders.

“You see I am quite punctual,” he said, speaking to the gentleman passenger on top.

The other did not reply, but probably made a sign, for the minister nodded pleasantly, saying:

“Yes. I am coming up there to sit by you. Besides, the night is so fine it would be a pity to box one’s self up inside.”

And with this the reverend traveller climbed to his place, and the coach started.

Drusilla sat back in her corner and drew aside her veil. Then she saw at the same moment mammy draw her head in from the other window and raise her eyes with a look of astonishment.

“Well, if that don’t beat Injuns!”

“What, nurse?” inquired Drusilla.

“Why, honey, that gentleman as has just got up on top, is the Reberend Mr. Hopper.”

“You have known him, then,” said Drusilla, with awakened interest.

“Hi, honey, why wouldn’t I know my own pastors and masters and sponsors in baptism? Sure I does know him, good too. Didn’t I sit underneaf of his preaching ebber since here he’s been till I come to lib long o’ you? What you talking ’bout, honey? I knows him good as I do my own chillun.”

“Is he an Alexandria man?”

“Oh lor, no, honey, not he! He comes from the northud and hasn’t been in these here parts moren’ a year; no, nor come to think of it, that long, nyther; ’cause I ’members well, he come the first of last Janivary as ebber was.”

“Then,” thought Drusilla to herself, “he could not have been but a few days in the State before he married Alick and me.” And speaking aloud, she asked—“What did you say his name was, nurse? I have forgotten.”

“Hopper, child! Mr. Hopper, honey; the Reberent Mr. Hopper; which whoever heard tell of a reberent gentleman of the name o’ Hopper, which to my thinking is more besuited a dancing-master, or a skipping-jack nor a Methody minis’er. But so it is, honey; and I ’spose people aint to be blamed for their misfortnit names. But what _I_ would like to know is, what he gwine prowlywowling ’bout the country for?” said mammy.

And Drusilla shared her curiosity, though she did not answer it.

“What, indeed, could be taking this young Methodist minister, who had married her to Alick, and who could testify to the validity of the marriage? What _could_ be taking him on the same day, by the same conveyance, on the same journey with herself? Could his errand have any connection with Alick’s approaching iniquitous marriage, or with his prior one? Indeed it looked so.

“But, nonsense, I am morbid and fanciful; the minister who married us happens to be journeying at the same time and in the same coach with myself, and I jump to the conclusion that he is going to the like place on the like business. What a weak fool my sorrows have made me, to be sure,” said Drusilla to herself, taking her imagination to task for its vagaries.

But she could not quite stop its wanderings.

“I’ll tell you what, honey, the night is a going to be a bad one. Them clouds over there is a banking up like mountains of soot. And the most _I_ care for is this:—it will drive them there passengers from the top to the inside, to moilest us,” said mammy, drawing her head in from the window.

“Well, they have a right to come, nurse. You would not keep them out in the rain all night, would you?”

“Yes; that I would; ’cause I want to have the coach all to ourselves,” said mammy, positively.

It was quite dark and very cloudy when the coach reached the little, rural town of Drainsville, where the horses were to be changed and the passengers were to take tea.

“Come, honey; les us get out,” said mammy, hiding away some of her treasures, while she loaded herself with others.

“I think I would rather stay here, nurse,” said Drusilla, languidly.

“No, no, no,” objected mammy, authoritatively, “not at all. I can’t allow it. The coach will be here for a good half an hour. You get out, and come in the house, and walk about a little to stretch your limbs; and take off your bonnet to ease your head, and have your tea comfortable. It will freshen you up a heap for the rest of the journey.

“And the goodness gracious alive knows as you _need_ freshening up, and you won’t get another chance till the stage stops at Frostville to breakfast. And that will be a good twelve hour long. Think of that, now, and do as I ’vises of you.”

Before mammy was half through her exordium, Drusilla, convinced by her eloquence, had risen to her feet, and was drawing her cloak around her.

She saw through the darkness her fellow-travellers from the top get off and go into the bar-room of the neat and comfortable inn. And she gave her hand to the guard, who kindly came around to help her to alight.

“There, Miss, there is the private door—a nice place, Miss, with a nice landlady and a good table; shall I take you in, Miss?” he inquired, hoisting a large umbrella, for it was now beginning to rain.

“Thanks, yes,” returned Drusilla, “the ground seems slippery.”

“This way, if you please, Miss.”

“Bad manners to your imperence, this lady is a married lady, and not a young Miss,” said mammy, indignantly.

“Beg pardon; but I thought the madam _looked_ young,” said the guard, laughing, yet not disrespectfully.

He took her safely across the slippery way, and showed her into a neat, well warmed and lighted parlor, where the table was cleanly set for tea.

The landlady, a cheerful, hospitable looking person, as a landlady should be, came to meet her.

“Would you like to go to a bedroom, ma’am?” inquired the smiling hostess, who was led into no mistake by the child face of her guest, because her quick and experienced eye had discovered the truth at a glance.

“Yes, please,” answered Drusilla.

And preceded by the landlady and followed by the nurse, she was taken up stairs to a large bed room, whose red carpet, white walls and draperies, and bright fire, gave it a very pleasant aspect.

Drusilla sauntered about, enjoying the privilege of locomotion.

“You’ll have tea, I suppose, ma’am?” inquired the hostess.

“Yes, please; and I will have it here,” answered Drusilla, as she took off her bonnet and laid it on the table.

The landlady left the room to issue orders.

While waiting for her tea, Drusilla washed her face and took down her hair and combed it out, and then did it up loosely in a net, so that she would be able to lie down and sleep with it so. Then she made the fastenings of her clothing easy.

And by the time she had finished preparing her toilet for the night journey, a maid-servant appeared with a tablecloth and tea tray.

Drusilla drank two cups of tea, for she was feverishly thirsty. And then, being scolded into the measure by mammy, who assured her that two lives depended on her feeding, she ate a buttered muffin, and the breast of a boiled chicken with cream sauce.

Drusilla, in the child-like simplicity of her heart, would have made her nurse sit down to the table and partake her supper.

But mammy asserted that she—Aunt Hector—knew her place. And so she filled the slop bowl brimming full of tea, piled up a plate with three quarters of the chicken and half a dozen muffins, went off to a distant corner of the room, seated herself upon an old chest, ranged her supper around her, and, with a promptness and dispatch that made her mistress stare, she dispatched all these edibles, and announced herself in condition to pursue her journey.

“And now if the coach is ready, I is.”

But if mammy and the coach were both ready, the passengers at the tea-table down stairs were not; but the coach was not so very strictly confined to time, and so it was a good quarter of an hour longer, and Drusilla had ample leisure to put on her bonnet, and to pay her bill, before she and her attendant were summoned to take their places.

The guard kindly and carefully assisted the delicate young matron into her corner of the back seat, saying that he would warn the other passengers who were coming in for the night that the whole of it belonged to her.

She thanked him, and then called to her nurse to make haste and enter.

“Yes, honey, yes; I’m coming just as soon’s ever I catch my eyes on them two little red morocky trunks, which I haven’t seen ’em since we left Alexandry,” said mammy, who was behind the coach, engaged in a sharp argument with both coachman and hostler.

“I tell you, woman,” said the former, “the blamed red trunks is all right. They is inside of the boot, kivered over with the ile skin to keep out the wet.”

“Yes, so you say; but I’d a heap rather see ’em with my own two looking eyes. And believe you I won’t till I does,” snapped mammy.

“There then, blast you, look for yourself,” said the hostler, pulling apart the leathern flaps of the boot.

Mammy peeped through the aperture, and seeing the treasure safe, she smiled and said:

“Thank ye, sir. Sorry to give you trouble; but seeing is believing, and nothing short of it aint.—Yes, honey; yes, honey, I’m coming now!” she exclaimed, in answer to her lady’s repeated summonses.

Mammy tumbled up into the coach with even more than her usual blundering awkwardness; for it was as dark as Tophet, and the guard did not seem to consider it necessary to hold a light to such a refractory passenger. And so mammy, after fumbling blindly about to find the seat she had formerly occupied, turned and dropped herself heavily down upon a gentleman’s lap. A simultaneous—

“Oh!”

A cry of pain from the victim and of surprise from the oppressor arose.

“Beg pardon, sir, I’m sure; but I’m a heavy ole ’oman, and you shouldn’t a hit up agin me.”

“Hit up agin you! Oh!” exclaimed the injured party, in a tragi-comic groan.

At the sound of his voice Drusilla started violently, and lowered her veil; though in fact it was too dark either to see or to be seen; for oh! with what a thrill of vague dread she recognized Dick Hammond’s tones, although she could not discern his face!

“I wish you wouldn’t yowl out in that onyearthly way, sir; you’ll disturb a deliky lady I has in my charge,” expostulated mammy.

“Oh, I’ll roar you softly an’ it were a sucking dove, and bear my tortures with the patience of a slaughtered lamb,” laughed Dick, in a lachrymose manner.

“I hope it aint as bad as all that, sir. Take a sup o’ brandy out of my bottle,” said mammy, feeling about all the vacant seats with her big hands.

At this instant the coach started so suddenly with such a violent lurch, that mammy was jerked back, and precipitated upon the knees of the unlucky Dick. And in scrambling upon her feet she laid hold of his hair to help herself up by.

“Outch!” screeched the victim. “She’s finished me now. She has scalped me and broken both my legs. I know they’ll have to be amputated!”

“Very sorry, sir, I’m sure,” said mammy, as she reeled about with the swinging of the coach, and finally dropped into a vacant seat. “Very sorry, but you _will_ keep a hitting up agin me. I hope you aint hurt much?”

“Hurt much? I tell you you have crushed both my knees to a pulp, and I know I shall have to get them taken off.”

“Very sorry, sir! but I can recommend you to a doctor as saws legs off beautiful, and likewise to a upholster who sells elegant wooden ones,” said mammy, sympathetically.

“Many thanks! But how about my head? You have pulled two great handfuls of hair out by the roots, and I know I shall have to get the rest shaved!” laughed and groaned Dick.

“Well, sir, I can direct you to a gentleman of the barbarous line of business, who will shave your head as clean as a peeled potaty, and sell you a lovely false wig.”

“A million of gratitudes! When I require your valuable guidance I will seek it. But for the present, I begin to suspect that my limbs were not quite crushed, but only benumbed; and instead of being scalped outright I have only lost a handful of hair,” said Dick, as he settled himself comfortably in his seat, and subsided into silence.

“How does you feel now, honey? Is you comformerble?” inquired mammy, in a low tone, addressing her charge.

She received no answer.

“I do b’lieve how she’s sleep. How is you getting along, honey?” repeated mammy. But with no better success.

“I do ’spose she _is_ ’sleep! But, Lor’, I daren’t go nearer to her to see for fear I should fall on her, and mash her, which would be dreadful. Tell me if you is asleep, honey; ’cause if you is I won’t wake you up,” said mammy, raising her voice, and listening attentively.

But still she received no reply,

“Wonder what’s the matter with her?” muttered mammy, uneasily.

“She’s asleep,” answered Dick.

“Well, if she’s ’sleep, why couldn’t she tell me so when I axed her?”

“She has told you so,” replied Dick.

“Lor’! why she hasn’t said a single word!”

“No; but she has told you so in the only way a sleeper could,—by her silence. If she had been awake, she would have spoken; wouldn’t she?”

“Sure enough; I never thought of that before. See what it is to have a head-piece. But is you sartain sure she is asleep?”

“Certain sure,” answered Dick, bending forward, and listening to the soft, low, regular breathing of his invisible fellow-passenger.

“Well, thank Goodness for that!” said mammy, as she settled herself to rest.

The stage-coach had been thundering on its way at a tremendous rate for several miles, but now it had to cross a broad but shallow stream and to go slowly.

Suddenly, Dick yawned, and then, addressing his fat neighbor, inquired:

“Does your ladyship object to smoking?”

“Yes, sir,” replied mammy, sharply; “my ladyship _do_ very much so, indeed; and so do my missus,—which, sleeping or ’waking, I believe it would make her sick.”

“Oh, your missus! True? Well, let’s see what sort of weather it is outside—though, in point of fact, I had rather bear the rain than forbear my cigar,” said Dick, as he opened the window and looked forth into the blackness of the night.

The rain had ceased and the clouds had parted as with the promise of clearing off entirely. A few stars were shining out.

“Come; not so bad a night after all. I have been out in worse. And as soon as we get upon dry land again, I think I will climb up on top and take a smoke. Eh, what do you say, Aunty? Shall I help you up also? I know you’d like your pipe!” said Dick.

“I scorn your insiniwations, sir, and I ’vises of you, if you is agoing out in the damp night air, as you’d better take care and not get cold in your ‘raw head and bloody bones,’ as you was a-complaining of.”

“Thanks for your caution, Aunty. I shall be sure to profit by it,” laughed Dick.

And then as the coach was slowly crawling out of the mud that bordered the shallow stream, he called the coachman to halt.

“I wish to get up on top,” said Dick.

And when the man complied with his wishes, Dick left his seat and went up.

There now remained two other passengers besides Drusilla and her attendant. These were two gentlemen that occupied the corners of the front seat, with their backs to the horses. But they sat so quietly that but for their breathing and an occasional cough or low-toned word, mammy would have been unconscious of their presence.

And now Drusilla bent forward and cautiously touched the nurse, and whispered:

“Mammy, come and sit by me. I have something to say to you. Don’t answer me aloud, but do as I tell you.”

“Lor’, honey, is you waked up? It was that there man a-making of his noise, getting outn’t his seat. Some people can’t never keep quiet. But, honey, I’m afraid if I moves I might fall on you,” said mammy.

“No, you won’t; we have no jolts here. Guide yourself by the left side of the seat, and I will give you my hand.”

“Yes, honey,” said the old woman, and slowly and carefully she changed her “base,” and safely reached the haven beside her mistress.

“Nurse,” whispered Drusilla, “I have not been asleep.”

“My! haven’t you, honey? Why didn’t you answer me, then?”

“Because I did not wish to talk. That gentleman who got in just the moment before you, is a passenger that was picked up at Drainsville, he is the same person who brought me the bad news yesterday.”

“Don’t say!”

“Hush! speak very low; we are not alone, you know.”

“And to think I never knowed him agin.”

“That is not strange. It is quite too dark for you to have seen his face. I only knew him by his voice.”

“Well, I heard his woice too; but I didn’t know it agin.”

“You heard it only in a moment of terror, and when its very sound was unnatural. It is not strange that you should not have recognized it again.”

“Well, I’m sure! Where’s he going?”

“I don’t know, nurse. Probably where _we_ are going. But I do not wish him to recognize _me_, lest he should like me to talk; and I cannot talk of my affairs. I say this to caution you. Be on you guard.”

“Yes, honey, I’ll be on my guard. And you may keep yourself dark during the night; but I don’t see how you gwine to manage when it is daylight.”

“I must keep my veil down,” said Drusilla.

“Well, honey, I hope you will succeed.”