"I always thought, somehow, that my dear mother was a forsaken wife. She never told me so, but there was something about her circumstances and manners, her retired life, her condition, so much below her deserts, her never speaking of her husband's death, which would have been natural for her to do, had she been a widow—all, somehow, went to give me the impression that my father had abandoned us. Lately I had suspected Major Warfield had something to do with the sad affair, though I never once suspected him to be my father. So much for natural instincts," said Traverse, with a melancholy smile.
"Traverse," said Herbert, with the design of drawing him off from sad remembrances of his mother's early trials. "Traverse, this confession, signed and witnessed as it is, will wonderfully simplify your course of action in regard to the deliverance of Madame Le Noir."
"Yes; so it will," said Traverse, with animation. "There will be no need now of applying to law, especially if you will come down with me to East Feliciana and bring the confession with you."
"I will set out with you this very morning, if you wish, as I am on leave. What! To hasten to the release of Capitola's mother, I would set out at midnight and ride straight on for a week!"
"Ah! there is no need of such extravagant feats of travel. It is now ten o'clock; if we start within an hour we can reach the 'Calm Retreat' by eleven o'clock to-night."
"En avant, then," exclaimed Herbert, rising and ringing the bell.
Traverse ordered horses, and in twenty minutes the friends were on the road to East Feliciana.
They reached the "Calm Retreat" so late that night that there was none but the porter awake to admit them.
Traverse took his friend up to his own dormitory, saying, laughingly:
"It is an unappreciable distance of time since you and I occupied the same bed, Herbert."