"When do you expect your father?" he asked.
"Any time, or no time. He knows not himself when he may come. Poor father; he hath labored arduously to subdue the forest and build us a home. We had nothing,—we were slaves."
"But slaves no longer, Cora."
"Why not? Our term has not expired."
"King William has pardoned all the participators in Monmouth's rebellion."
For a moment, she was overwhelmed with joy and, clapping her hands, gazed toward heaven, murmuring:
"Oh my God, I thank thee!" but, anon, the reaction came. The pardon for participation in Monmouth's rebellion was granted; but the subsequent crime—the flight from the master and the slaying of the overseer—could not be cured by the king's pardon to the Monmouth rebels. With a gasping sob, she said:
"But that other—that awful thing?"
"What, Cora?"
"The flight, the pursuit and the death of the overseer. Oh, Charles, we can never be safe, while that hangs over us."