Only once had he fallen, and that two years before, when, as if some demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances of the past, and yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who seemed to sway him at will, plunged into a tide of dissipation, and lent himself at last to an act which had since embittered every waking hour.  As if all the events of his life were crowding upon his memory this night, he thought of two years ago, and the scene which transpired in the suburbs of New York, whither immediately after his uncle’s death he had gone upon a matter of important business.  In the gleaming fire before him there was now another face than hers, an older, a different, though not less beautiful face, and Hugh shuddered as he thought how it must have changed ere this—­thought of the anguish which stole into the dark, brown eyes when first the young girl learned how cruelly she had been betrayed.  Why hadn’t he saved her?  What had she done to him that he should treat her so, and where was she now?  Possibly she was dead.  He almost hoped she was, for if she were, the two were then together, his golden-haired and brown, for thus he designated the two.

Larger and fuller grew the veins upon his forehead, as memory kept thus faithfully at work, and so absorbed was Hugh in his reverie that until twice repeated he did not hear his mother’s anxious inquiry: 

“What is that noise?  It sounds like some one in distress.”

Hugh started at last, and, after listening for a moment he, too, caught the sound which had so alarmed his mother, and made ’Lina stop her reading.  A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant’s wail, now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind shifted its course and drove first at the uncurtained window of the sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors of the gloomy hall.

“It is some one in the storm, though I can’t imagine why any one should be abroad to-night,” Hugh said, going to the window and peering out into the darkness.

“Lyd’s child, most likely.  Negro young ones are always squalling, and I heard her tell Aunt Chloe at supper time that Tommie had the colic,” ’Lina remarked opening again the book she was reading, and with a slight shiver drawing nearer to the fire.

“Where are you going, my son?” asked Mrs. Worthington, as Hugh arose to leave the room.

“Going to Lyd’s cabin, for if Tommie is sick enough to make his screams heard above the storm, she may need some help,” was Hugh’s reply, and a moment after he was ploughing his way through the drifts which lay between the house and the negro quarters.

“How kind and thoughtful he is,” the mother said, softly, more to herself than to her daughter, who nevertheless quickly rejoined: 

“Yes, kind to niggers, and horses, and dogs, I’ll admit, but let me, or any other white woman come before him as an object of pity, and the tables are turned at once.  I wonder what does make him hate women so.”