"I do not say that."
"But perhaps it is so. Oh, Heaven, my beloved and honored father—that noble and generous friend who never denied a wish of my heart—tell them to drive faster, for pity's sake! Let us lose no time in reaching him!"
She turned to Augustus Horton with clasped hands raised in supplication.
At the very moment when she thus appealed to him, the carriage passed a corner of a street at which there was a lamp.
The light of this lamp flashed upon the face of the planter as they drove rapidly by.
Brief as the moment was, Camillia fancied she detected a smile of triumph upon the countenance of Augustus Horton.
A thrill of horror crept through her veins as she thought that perhaps this alarm about her father was some vile subterfuge of her rejected lover.
She had often heard—heard with a careless and unheeding ear, of deeds of darkness done in the city of her birth.
She knew that the wealthy members of New Orleans society were not over scrupulous in their gratification of their viler passions—and she trembled as she thought of her helplessness—but she had the brave spirit of her father's race, and she had sufficient presence of mind to conceal her terror.
She determined upon testing her companion.