Why?" inquired he.

"Because," she replied, "you are so pale and have such a wild look in
your eyes."

Again he protested his innocence, and vowed she was the only woman who
had any claim upon his heart. To behold one thus playing upon the
feelings of two lovely women is enough to make us feel that evil must
at last bring its own punishment.

Henry and Gertrude had scarcely risen from the breakfast-table next
morning ere old Mrs. Miller made her appearance. She immediately took
her daughter aside, and informed her of her previous night's
experience, telling her how she had followed Henry to Isabella's
cottage, detailing the interview with the quadroon, and her late return
home alone. The old woman urged her daughter to demand that the
quadroon and her child be at once sold to the negro speculators and
taken out of the State, or that Gertrude herself should separate from
Henry.

"Assert your rights, my dear. Let no one share a heart that justly
belongs to you," said Mrs. Miller, with her eyes flashing fire. "Don't
sleep this night, my child, until that wench has been removed from that
cottage; and as for the child, hand that over to me,--I saw at once
that it was Henry's."

During these remarks, the old lady was walking up and down the room
like a caged lioness. She had learned from Isabella that she had been
purchased by Henry, and the innocence of the injured quadroon caused
her to acknowledge that he was the father of her child. Few women could
have taken such a matter in hand and carried it through with more
determination and success than old Mrs. Miller. Completely inured in
all the crimes and atrocities connected with the institution of
slavery, she was also aware that, to a greater or less extent, the
slave women shared with their mistress the affections of their master.
This caused her to look with a suspicious eye on every good-looking
negro woman that she saw.

While the old woman was thus lecturing her daughter upon her rights and
duties, Henry, unaware of what was transpiring, had left the house and
gone to his office. As soon as the old woman found that he was gone,
she said,--

"I will venture anything that he is on his way to see that wench again.
I'll lay my life on it."

The entrance, however, of little Marcus, or Mark, as he was familiarly
called, asking for Massa Linwood's blue bag, satisfied her that her
son-in-law was at his office. Before the old lady returned home, it was
agreed that Ge