. Damn Cozby! If he had given me my way, we
should have been forty miles from here by this. I'll tell you. Cozby is
even now picking five men to go to Morganton and steal Sevier, and he
puts me off with a kind word. He'll not have me, he says."

"He thinks you too hot. It needs discretion and an old head," said I.

"Egad, then, I'll commend you to him," said Nick.

"Now," I said, "it's time for you to tell me something of yourself, and
how you chanced to come into this country."

"'Twas Darnley's fault," said Nick.

"Darnley!" I exclaimed; "he whom you got into the duel with--" I stopped
abruptly, with a sharp twinge of remembrance that was like a pain in my
side. 'Twas Nick took up the name.

"With Harry Riddle." He spoke quietly, that was the terrifying part of
it. "David, I've looked for that man in Italy and France, I've scoured
London for him, and, by God, I'll find him before he dies. And when I do
find him I swear to you that there will be no such thing as time wasted,
or mercy."

I shuddered. In all my life I had never known such a moment of
indecision. Should I tell him? My conscience would give me no definite
reply. The question had haunted me all the night, and I had lost my
way in consequence, nor had the morning's ride from the Widow Brown's
sufficed to bring me to a decision. Of what use to tell him? Would
Riddle's death mend matters? The woman loved him, that had been clear to
me; yet, by telling Nick what I knew I might induce him to desist from
his search, and if I did not tell, Nick might some day run across the
trail, follow it up, take Riddle's life, and lose his own. The moment,
made for confession as it was, passed.

"They have ruined my life," said Nick. "I curse him, and I curse her."

"Hold!" I cried; "she is your mother."

"And therefore I curse her the more," he said. "You know what she is,
you've tasted of her charity, and you are my father's nephew. If you
have been without experience, I will tell you what she is. A common--" I
reached out and put my hand across his mouth.

"Silence!" I cried; "you shall say no such thing. And have you not
manhood enough to make your own life for yourself?"

"Manhood!" he repeated, and laughed. It was a laugh that I did not like.
"They made a man of me, my parents. My father played false with the
Rebels and fled to England for his reward. A year after he went I was
left alone at Temple Bow to the tender mercies of the niggers. Mr. Mason
came ba