he came commissioned to speak
could respond to the anguish her voice betrayed? She spoke again; she
had recovered from the surprise of her distress, and, looking now at
Julius, said,--

"You are excused from replying; but--you do not, in any event, propose
to return home?"

"Yes, Madam, yes,--immediately, immediately."

It was the first time he had discovered this purpose, and he did so with
a vehemence expressive of desire to vindicate himself where he should be
understood. She answered slowly, but she did not seem amazed, as Deane
would infallibly have been, as you and I had been,--such doubting
worshippers, after all, of the great heroic.

"Do you not hear, Julius, everywhere, that you are a freeman? Is it
possible no one has told you so? Do you not know it for yourself? It is
likely."

"It don't signify. I tended him through one course,--he got a bad cut,
Master did,--and I'll take care of him again. I a'n't through till he
is."

"Is he well?"

"Thanks to me, and the Lord, he _is_ well of the wound again, and gone
to work."

At the pause that now ensued, as if he had only been waiting for this,
the slave approached nearer to his mistress; but he did not lift his
eyes,--he desired but to serve. She was so proud, he thought,--always
was; if he could only get _himself_ out of the way, and let this ugly,
cruel business right itself without a witness! Master knew how to plead
better than any one could for him. He produced a tiny case of
chamois-leather.

"Master sent you this," he said; and it seemed as if he would have given
it into her very hands; but they were folded; so he laid it on the edge
of the piano, and stepped back a pace. He knew there was no need for him
to explain.

Well she understood. Her husband had done his utmost to secure a
reconciliation. Love had its rights, its sacrifices; with these she had
to do, and not with his official conduct and public acts.

She knew well what that trifle of a chamois case contained. It was the
miniature of their child, the little one of earth no more, but
heaven-born: the winged child, with the flame above its head,--symbols
with which, of old, they loved to represent Genius. This miniature was
set in diamonds; it was the mother's gift to the father of the child:
this woman's gift to the man whom loyal men to-day call traitor, rebel,
alien, enemy.

And thus he appealed to her. Oh, tender was the voice! This love that
called had in its utterances proof t