Then came a dawn and a noon and a twilight through which I pushed forward the large horse with great cruelty, only pausing beside streams to allow that he drink of the water and also to throw myself down on my face and lap the cool refreshment like do all humble things.  And, when at last the stars were again there to look down upon me, we arrived behind the barn of that Bud Bell to find all in the little house at rest.  I thought of that small child in sleep in the arms of that woman, and a great sobbing came from my heart as I threw myself into my Cherry, after giving a supper to good Lightfoot, and fled down the long road to the distant city of Hayesville that lay away in the valley like a great nest of glowworms in a glade of the leaves of darkness.  And among those glowworms I knew that more than a hundred friends to me were beginning to go into sleep with deep affection in their hearts for that Robert Carruthers whom wicked Roberta, Marquise of Grez and Bye, was about to steal from them.  I wept as I turned my Cherry through the back street and into the garage of my Uncle, the General Robert.  Then I paused.  All was quiet in the house and no light burned in the apartments of my beloved protector and relative.  From the watch at my wrist I ascertained the hour to be half after ten o’clock, and I knew that he was safely in cards at that Club of Old Hickory, whose lists now bore the added one of another Robert Carruthers, man of honor and descendant of its founders.  Also there was no light in the rear of the house in the apartment of that kind Kizzie, in whose affections I had made a large place.  A dim light burned in the hall and I knew that there I would find my faithful chocolate Bonbon sitting upon a chair by the great door in a deep sleep.  And in a very few minutes I so found him.

“It is hello there, good Bonbon,” I greeted him.

“Howdy, Mr. Robert,” he answered me by a very large smile with very white teeth set in his face of extreme blackness.  “The Gen’l said to call him on the ’fome as soon as you come.”

“That I will attend to from my apartment,” I answered him and then ascended the wide dark stairway with feet which were as a weight to my ankles.

Very slowly I entered that apartment and turned on the bright light.  All was in readiness for me, and on the small table under the glass case that contained that beflowered robe of state of the dead Grandmamma Carruthers stood a vase of very fresh and innocent young roses.

“I would that I could remain and fulfill the destiny of a woman of your house, Madam Grandmamma,” I whispered to her lovely and smiling portrait on the wall opposite.  “I am the last of the ladies Carruthers but I have made a forfeit of that destiny and I must go out in the night again in man’s attire to a death that will tear asunder the tender flesh that you have borne.  Good-bye!”