They had entered the familiar lane. The water was roaring under the ice at the edge of the dam. A group of workmen caught sight of the two riders from the doorway of the mill, and set up a cheer. They had been sighted from the house also, and a cluster of figures was waiting at the foot of the big white wooden pillars. Aunt Clarissa was there, and his sister Grace, and a broad-shouldered young man in a uniform of blue and buff. The servants ran out from the big wing and clustered about the roadway. Old Cato, hatless, came running down the road. When he approached within a few feet he stopped and faltered.
"Wy, Mas'r William! you, you—"
"CATO," SAID MR. HEWES, "WHAT'S THE MATTER?"
"Cato," said Mr. Hewes, "what's the matter?"
"Wy, it's Mas'r George, ob course; dis ol' nigger's goin' plumb crazy." Cato laughed.
Still something had happened to dampen the old colored man's effusion, and he grasped the hand extended to him with an assumption of being too much overcome for words.
As William slid from the saddle his dizziness had increased. He had had nothing to eat all that day, and the fall had been heavier than he had at first supposed. The sight of his little sister Grace, grown to this tall beautiful young creature, unnerved him, and when she turned her face up to his and put her arms around his neck, tears came into his eyes and he sobbed weakly.
"Poor boy!" said Aunt Clarissa, coming up, as he rested his head on Grace's shoulder and walked towards the door. "He has suffered much. Oh, those prisons! The stories I have heard. Dear George, forgive me. I have been both hard and wrong."
It was evident that Aunt Clarissa had suffered also, and her face had softened in a wonderful degree. William was almost tempted to make a clean breast of everything there and then, when the horror of his real position struck him forcibly. Words would not come; he felt a strange sinking at his heart; he stumbled, and would have fallen but for Mr. Hewes's extended arm. For the first time in his life he fainted.