nly in his impatient march up and down the room, and
said more quietly than he had spoken during the whole conversation--'I
will go with you, General--I shall be glad of a little change.'

"'My dear friend, few things could be pleasanter to me than to have your
society, but you forget that it is quite out of the question here; you
would leave your mother and Miss Crawford alone.'

"I could not keep silence a moment longer--if I had died for it, I must
have spoken.

"'We have plenty of friends,' I said; 'we should do very well. Mr.
Harrington could have a pleasant trip, and leave us quite satisfied that
Zillah would not be carried off by bandits on the road.'

"I did not look at James as I spoke. I felt that I neither colored or
showed any emotion--it seemed as if I was only surprised and slightly
disgusted at so much discussion concerning a servant.

"'Oh, you must not go, James,' his mother said. 'I should die of fright
in twenty-four hours.'

"'I see that it would be out of the question,' returned he, in a voice
that wavered between vexation and trouble.

"The General cast another quick glance toward me--that strange fleeting
look which I had detected several times before, and which proved to me
that the suspicions in my own mind, to which I could scarcely have given
a name, in fact but vaguely understood, had a place in his.

"James turned to leave the room; the General had risen and was standing
at a little distance from me, bending over a vase of flowers and
inhaling their perfume with that love of all beautiful things which was
one of his most prominent characteristics.

"In leaving the room, Mr. Harrington had to pass near him, and I
distinctly heard the General say--'You surprise me! Imprudent, most
imprudent.'

"James passed on as if he had not heard the words, but I saw his face,
and I knew by the pale wrath that locked his features and glittered in
his eyes, that not a syllable of that quiet remonstrance upon the
glaring impropriety of his behavior, had escaped him.

"The General had evidently forgotten that I sat near enough to have
overheard his remark, but as he turned and looked at me, I suppose he
saw by the expression of my countenance that I had done so. He seemed
troubled. I knew that he divined the vague suspicions that disturbed me,
and was annoyed to think that any words of his should so clearly have
shown me that he shared my ideas in regard to James' singular conduct.

"I left Mrs.