"I did, indeed," replied Adelaide, "we were educated at the same school—we were bosom friends."
"Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Craig, sanctimoniously; "to what pollution are our daughters exposed, when the children of slaves are foisted upon society in this manner!"
"No, Mr. Craig," cried Mortimer, with, a bitter laugh; "the pollution is in the very atmosphere of a clime in which a father's first duty to society is to trample on the laws of humanity—the ties of flesh and blood."
"Hold your tongue, Mortimer," said Augustus Horton, "you know nothing of these things; Gerald Leslie has acted disgracefully, and this girl must pay the penalty of her father's folly."
"That is Louisiana justice."
"Excuse me for two or three minutes, Mr. Craig," said Augustus, rising; "I have a few words to say to my cousin. I will rejoin you almost immediately; in the meantime the ladies will amuse you. Come, Mortimer."
The young man followed his cousin, after bowing coldly to Craig. The truth of the matter was that Augustus Horton wished to get his imprudent partner out of the way, as he felt that Silas Craig would take care to spread the report of Mortimer Percy's revolutionary principles among the outraged Southerners.
Left alone with the two ladies, Silas Craig felt himself very much at a loss for conversation.
He had never married, and he was always silent and ashamed in female society. Accomplished hypocrite as he was, he trembled before the keen instincts of a woman, and felt that his real nature stood unmasked.
But on this occasion he was relieved from his embarrassment in a manner he had little expected. Just as he was preparing himself to utter some commonplace remark, a stentorian voice resounded through the vestibule without.