God
you shall see him once again! But now we must go. Will you not come
with me?"

"I cannot, I cannot!" she repeated.

"But you must, Kate," said the colonel, lifting her up, in deadly
anxiety to get away before his son returned. "You are a prisoner."

"I can't, father; indeed I can't!" she cried again.

She struggled a moment, then half fainted in his arms.

"Who else is here?" said Johnson.

"Only the slaves," replied the colonel.

"Well, we don't want them. Move on, then! Your daughter can take her
maid with her if she wishes," he said with surly courtesy. "Is this
the wench? Well, get your mistress a cloak, and be quick about it!"

Assisted by Chloe, the maid, and Lord Desborough, the colonel half
carried, half led, his daughter out of the room.

"Seymour, Seymour!" she cried despairingly at the door; but he lay
still where he had fallen, seeing and hearing nothing.

CHAPTER VI

_Faithful Subject of his Majesty_

A few miles up the river from Colonel Wilton's plantation, upon a high
bluff, from which, as at that point the river made a wide bend, one could
see up and down for a long distance in either direction, was the
beautiful home of the Talbots, known as Fairview Hall.

On the evening of the raid at the Wilton place, Madam Talbot and her son
were having a very important conversation. Madam Talbot was a widow who
had remained unwedded again from choice. Rumor had it that many
gentlemen cavaliers of the neighborhood had been anxious to take to their
own hearthstones the person of the fair young widow, so early bereft, and
incidentally were willing to assume the responsibility of the management
of the magnificent estate which had been left to her by her most
considerate husband. Among the many suitors gossip held that Colonel
Wilton was the chief, and it was thought at one time that his chances of
success were of the best; but so far, at least, nothing had come of all
the agitation, and Madam Talbot lived her life alone, managing her
plantation, the object of the friendly admiration of all the old
bachelors and widowers of the neighborhood. She had devoted herself to
the successful development of her property with all the energy and
capacity of a nature eminently calculated for success, and was now one of
the richest women in the colony. One son only had blessed her union with
Henry Talbot, and Hilary Talbot was a young man just turned twenty-five
years of age, and the idol of he