“I am afraid,” I answered as I clung to him with a trembling.
“Yes, I know you are afraid of him—or anything,” laughed my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner with a shake of my bare shoulders under his strong hands. “But perhaps these papers I have in my pocket from Captain Lasselles, who is at the Mansion getting rid of dust, will help you out after the first explosion, which you will have to stand in a very few minutes from now, if that hall clock is correct and I know the General’s habits as I think I do.”
“Oh, let me ascend and get once again into my trousers!” I exclaimed as I sought to leave the arms that again held me close.
“Never,” said my Gouverneur Faulkner after another kiss upon the lace on my breast. “You’ll just wear this ball gown until you can get some dimity, Madam, and don’t you ever even mention to me—”
But just here an interruption arrived, and I sprang from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner only in time to avoid being discovered therein. My beloved Uncle, the General Robert, entered the door in a great hurry, with that much frightened Bonbon following close at his heels.
“What’s all this that fool nigger phoned about ghosts walking and—” Then he stood very still in the spot upon which his feet were placed and regarded me as I turned from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner and faced him.
“My God, Governor, what has happened to my boy?” he asked, and his fine old face was of a great whiteness and trembling. “Sam says he’s dead and the ghost—” and then came another pause in which all of the persons present held for a long minute their breath.
Did I make excuses and explanations and pleadings to my beloved Uncle, the General Robert, in such suffering over the death of that Robert? I did not. I opened my strong young arms wide and took him into them with a tenderness of such great force that it would of a necessity go into his very heart.
“I am a wicked girl who has come to you in lies as a boy, my Uncle Robert, but I have a love that is so great for you that I will be in death if you do not accept of it from me,” I said as I pressed my cheek in its tears against his.
And for still another long minute all of the persons present waited again and I forced to remain in my throat a sob, while my beloved Gouverneur Faulkner laid one of his hands on the shoulder of my Uncle, the General Robert.