"I have answered, Paul."
"But you turn away. You will not look at me."
"Yes—see, I do."
His face brightened all over; taking her hand, which he tangled up in the crimson thread in his impetuosity, he pressed it to his lips.
"I am going away, Rose."
"Going away—oh, Paul!"
"Yes; don't turn so white. I shall come back again in a few months—it is not so far off."
"Where, where?"
She could not complete the sentence, her tears rose so quick and fast.
"I am going back to my old home, Rose, in St. Domingo. My father was a rich man there—one of the first and highest in the island. I can remember that without help, but Jube has told me more than this. He and his brothers, a large family, were all killed in that awful massacre. They had great riches in gold and jewels. I saw piles and piles of gold brought into my father's house that last week, and heard those gentlemen, my father and his brothers, pledge themselves to defend it each for the other, so long as one of them should live. This compact was not written, but engraved on a brick of gold, that it might be permanent, and carry its own record wherever the treasures went. I was a boy, and too young for a trust of so much magnitude. Where these treasures were put I never knew. My uncles were all killed. My father, my mother—oh, Rose, you know about that. I alone was left of the family. Jube, dear old Jube yonder, is all the servant of our great household. My mother entrusted him with her jewels. They fell into the hands of Captain Thrasher."