when I returned from a year's visit
to Philadelphia."

I could not equivocate with this woman, I could no more lie to her
sorrow than to the Judgment. Why had I not foreseen her question?

"And he hates me?" She spoke with a calmness now that frightened me more
than her agitation had done.

"I do not know," I answered; "when I would have spoken to him he was
gone."

"He was drunk," she said. I stared at her in frightened wonderment. "He
was drunk--it is better than if he had cursed me. He did not mention me?
Or any one?"

"He did not," I answered.

She turned her face away.

"Go on, I will listen to you," she said, and sat immovable through the
whole of my story, though her hand trembled in mine. And while I live I
hope never to have such a thing to go through with again. Truth held me
to the full, ludicrous tragedy of the tale, to the cheap character of
my old Colonel's undertaking, to the incident of the drum, to the
conversation in my room. Likewise, truth forbade me to rekindle her
hope. I did not tell her that Nick had come with St. Gre to New Orleans,
for of this my own knowledge was as yet not positive. For a long time
after I had finished she was silent.

"And you think the expedition will not get here?" she asked finally, in
a dead voice.

"I am positive of it," I answered, "and for the sake of those who are
engaged in it, it is mercifully best that it should not. The day may
come," I added, for the sake of leading her away, "when Kentucky will be
strong enough to overrun Louisiana. But not now."

She turned to me with a trace of her former fierceness.

"Why are you in New Orleans?" she demanded.

A sudden resolution came to me then.

"To bring you back with me to Kentucky," I answered. She shook her head
sadly, but I continued: "I have more to say. I am convinced that neither
Nick nor you will be happy until you are mother and son again. You have
both been wanderers long enough."

Once more she turned away and fell into a revery. Over the housetop,
from across the street, came the gay music of the fiddler. Mrs. Temple
laid her hand gently on my shoulder.

"My dear," she said, smiling, "I could not live for the journey."

"You must live for it," I answered. "You have the will. You must live
for it, for his sake."

She shook her head, and smiled at me with a courage which was the crown
of her sufferings.

"You are talking nonsense, David," she said; "it is not like you. Come,"
she said,