d groveled at his feet in sorrow and remorse at not being
able to make him happy!"

"There are some persons whom we can never make happy. It is not in them
to be so," commented Herbert.

"He made me promise never to see or to speak to Le Noir again--a promise
eagerly given but nearly impossible to keep. My husband spent as much
time with me as he possibly could spare from his military duties, and
looked forward with impatience to the autumn, when it was thought that
he would be at liberty to take me home. He often used to tell me that we
should spend our Christmas at his house, Hurricane Hall, and that I
should play Lady Bountiful and distribute Christmas gifts to the negroes
and that they would love me. And, oh! with what joy I anticipated that
time of honor and safety and careless ease, as an acknowledged wife, in
the home of my husband! There, too, I fondly believed, our child would
be born. All his old tenderness returned for me, and I was as happy, if
not as wildly joyful, as at first."

"'Twas but a lull in the storm," said Herbert.

"Aye! 'twas but a lull in the storm, or, rather, before the storm! I do
think that from the time of that duel Le Noir had resolved upon our
ruin. As soon as he was able to go out he haunted the woods around my
cabin and continually lay in wait for me. I could not go out even in the
company of my maid Lura to pick blackberries or wild plums or gather
forest roses, or to get fresh water at the spring, without being
intercepted by Le Noir and his offensive admiration. He seemed to be
ubiquitous! He met me everywhere--except in the presence of Major
Warfield. I did not tell my husband, because I feared that if I did he
would have killed Le Noir and died for the deed."

"Humph! it would have been 'good riddance of bad rubbish' in both
cases," muttered Herbert, under his teeth.

"But instead of telling him I confined myself strictly to my cabin. One
fatal day my husband, on leaving me in the morning, said that I need not
wait up for him at night, for that it would be very late when he came,
even if he came at all. He kissed me very fondly when he went away.
Alas! alas! it was the last--last time! At night I went to bed
disappointed, yet still so expectant that I could not sleep. I know not
how long I had waited thus, or how late it was when I heard a tap at the
outer door, and heard the bolt undrawn and a footstep enter and a low
voice asking:

"Is she asleep?" and Lura's reply in t