receive my attentions on account of the relations between him and me? If
she knew anything about Zoe she never betrayed it to me. Surely she
could not be in Jacksonville so long and be ignorant that Zoe was my
half-sister. At last I decided to explore Dorothy's mind. I went at it
forthrightly. Did she know that Zoe and I had the same father?

She had heard it. That was a common enough thing in the South; not
common there, however, for a colored mother to be the wife of a white
father. "I have suffered on account of this," said Dorothy. "You knew
nothing about it and had nothing to do with it. It is too bad--too bad,
Jimmy!"

There remained Zoe's misadventure. How could I approach that? But if
Dorothy had heard of it would she continue to receive me? If she knew
about it would not the present association of ideas bring it to mind
and bespeak it to me by change of color or expression? I looked at
Dorothy quizzically. I discovered nothing in her face. Then I began to
think of the certain probability that some one had come to her breathing
rumors upon her. So I said: "Promise me something, Dorothy. If any one
ever tells you anything about me, say, for example, that I haven't been
perfectly fair with Zoe in every way, and honorable as far as I know how
to be, will you withhold belief until you give me a chance? Do you
promise me that?" And Dorothy stretched her hand to me in a warm-hearted
way. "You are Reverdy's friend, aren't you, and he is yours. Well, I
promise you. But it isn't necessary, for it would have to be something
that I could believe you capable of. Then Reverdy would have to believe
it, and then I might have a mind of my own after all. Why, how could
anyone say anything about you? You have been as good to Zoe as if she
were as white as I."

And so Dorothy didn't know. I left the matter where it was. I could not
go on. You see I was nineteen and Dorothy was eighteen and the year was
1834.

But Lamborn. I had made an enemy of him. Rather, he had turned himself
into my enemy. He was running with a gang of rough fellows called the
McCall boys. They drank and fought, using clubs or stones or knives.
They were suspected of trying to rob the stage when it was driven by the
poor wretch who had died of the cholera two summers before. That driver
was noted for his courage, his ready use of the rifle; and he had
frightened the marauders off, and had wounded one of them, who limped
away until the trail of his blood