If he is dead, young Cabarreux."

Isabel made no reply for a moment: the work she held fell from her hand.
She had not known of this chance. If David Cabarreux were the heir he
would have every virtue in her father's eyes.

"I hope," she said at last, taking up her work again with a soft,
complacent little laugh, "Mr. Cabarreux may live long to enjoy his good
fortune."

"The fortune is not his," cried Sam excitedly. "You don't understand.
Boyer is the heir--the Honorable Peter M. Boyer. A man who stood in the
Senate of the United States, Miss Calhoun. A man who knows the
world--who will know how to give his wife place and power, and who will
have money now to buy both."

"I thought you said he was dead?"

"No. I--" He paused, grew suddenly pale, and went on hurriedly: "I know
the man. He is alive."

"Then--It does not matter. It is all just as it was before," said Isabel
with a proud smile. But, her thoughts going to her lover in his
disappointment, she almost forgot that the major was there until he
spoke again.

His altered tone startled her into attention. It was sharp with
repressed passion and pain. The poor sot was in earnest--more in
earnest, it seemed to her, even than Cabarreux had been when he had told
her that he loved her to-day. "Miss Calhoun, do you remember one day
three or four years ago, when I was knocked down in a drunken fight at
Sevier, and lay like a beast on the roadside?"

"Major Fetridge--"

"Hush! I must tell you: I never spoke to you about it before. You passed
by. You were a little thing then--the people in Sevier had left me there
like a dead dog--but you tried to rouse me, to take me home; and when
you could not do it, you spread your handkerchief over my face to hide
it. I have it yet. Look there! Such a scrap of a thing!" opening it out.

"Any girl would have done it. Why do you bring up this miserable story
now?" cried Isabel.

"Because on that day I swore before Almighty God that if ever I reached
my place in the world you should stand beside me. Oh!" pacing up and
down with a bitter laugh, "I wasn't always the drunken bummer Sam
Fetridge. I have within me great capabilities--even yet, yet. _You_ saw
that. You saw the man I might have been, and never was. Every word you
have ever spoken to me has showed me that you saw it."

The words and the uncontrollable excitement of the man had a singular
effect upon Isabel. Something in the voice, the words, came from a
strong sou