She loves him—she loves him!
Let her love and be damned!
She shall never have him.
She shall never see him again, unless she prove obstinate; and then it will be but to condemn him.
A word from her, and he’s a hanged man.
“She shall speak it, if she don’t say that other word, I’ve twice asked her for.
The third time will be the last.
One more refusal, and I show my hand.
Not only shall this Irish adventurer meet his doom; but she shall be his condemner; and the plantation, house, niggers, everything—.
Ah! uncle Woodley; I wanted to see you.”
The soliloquy above reported took place in a chamber, tenanted only by Cassius Calhoun. It was Woodley Poindexter who interrupted it. Sad, silent, straying through the corridors of Casa del Corvo, he had entered the apartment usually occupied by his nephew—more by chance than from any premeditated purpose.
“Want me!
For what, nephew?”
There was a tone of humility, almost obeisance, in the speech of the broken man.
The once proud Poindexter—before whom two hundred slaves had trembled every day, every hour of their lives, now stood in the presence of his master!
True, it was his own nephew, who had the power to humiliate him—his sister’s son.
But there was not much in that, considering the character of the man.
“I want to talk to you about Loo,” was the rejoinder of Calhoun.
It was the very subject Woodley Poindexter would have shunned.
It was something he dreaded to think about, much less make the topic of discourse; and less still with him who now challenged it.
Nevertheless, he did not betray surprise.
He scarce felt it. Something said or done on the day before had led him to anticipate this request for a conversation—as also the nature of the subject.
The manner in which Calhoun introduced it, did not diminish his uneasiness.
It sounded more like a demand than a request.
“About Loo?
What of her?” he inquired, with assumed calmness.
“Well,” said Calhoun, apparently in reluctant utterance, as if shy about entering upon the subject, or pretending to be so, “I—I—wanted—”
“I’d rather,” put in the planter, taking advantage of the other’s hesitancy, “I’d rather not speak of her now.”
This was said almost supplicatingly.
“And why not now, uncle?” asked Calhoun, emboldened by the show of opposition.
“You know my reasons, nephew?”
“Well, I know the time is not pleasant.
Poor Henry missing—supposed to be—After all, he may turn up yet, and everything be right again.”
“Never! we shall never see him again—living or dead.
I have no longer a son?”
“You have a daughter; and she—”
“Has disgraced me!”
“I don’t believe it, uncle—no.”
“What means those things I’ve heard—myself seen?
What could have taken her there—twenty miles across the country—alone—in the hut of a common horse-trader—standing by his bedside?
O God!
And why should she have interposed to save him—him, the murderer of my son—her own brother?
O God!”
“Her own story explains the first—satisfactorily, as I think.” Calhoun did not think so. “The second is simple enough.
Any woman would have done the same—a woman like Loo.”
“There is none like her.
I, her father, say so.
Oh! that I could think it is, as you say!
My poor daughter! who should now be dearer to me than ever—now that I have no son!”
“It is for her to find you a son—one already related to you; and who can promise to play the part—with perhaps not so much affection as him you have lost, but with all he has the power to give.