CHAPTER IV

OF A SUDDEN RESOLUTION

It was nearly morning when I fell asleep in my chair, from sheer exhaustion, for the day before had been a hard one, even for me.  I awoke with a start, and sat for some minutes trying to collect my scattered senses.  The sun streamed in at my open door, the birds hopped on the lawn, and the various sounds of the bustling life of the little town came to me from beyond.  Suddenly, with a glimmering of the mad events of the night, I stood up, walked uncertainly into the back room, and stared at the bed.

It was empty.  I went back into the outer room; my eye wandered from the shattered whiskey bottle, which was still on the floor, to the table littered with Mrs. Temple’s letters.  And there, in the midst of them, lay a note addressed with my name in a big, unformed hand.  I opened it mechanically.

   “Dear Davy,”—­so it ran,—­“I have gone away, I cannot tell you where. 
   Some day I will come back and you will forgive me.  God bless you! 
                    Nick.”

He had gone away!  To New Orleans?  I had long ceased trying to account for Nick’s actions, but the more I reflected, the more incredible it seemed to me that he should have gone there, of all places.  And yet I had had it from Clark’s own lips (indiscreet enough now!) that Nick and St. Gre were to prepare the way for an insurrection there.  My thoughts ran on to other possibilities; would he see his mother?  But he had no reason to know that Mrs. Temple was still in New Orleans.  Then my glance fell on her letters, lying open on the table.  Had he read them?  I put this down as improbable, for he was a man who held strictly to a point of honor.

And then there was Antoinette de St. Gre!  I ceased to conjecture here, dashed some water in my eyes, pulled myself together, and, seizing my hat, hurried out into the street.  I made a sufficiently indecorous figure as I ran towards the water-side, barely nodding to my acquaintances on the way.  It was a fresh morning, a river breeze stirred the waters of the Bear Grass, and as I stood, scanning the line of boats there, I heard footsteps behind me.  I turned to confront a little man with grizzled, chestnut eyebrows.  He was none other than the Citizen Gignoux.

“You tek ze air, Monsieur Reetchie?” said he.  “You look for some one, yes?  You git up too late see him off.”

I made a swift resolve never to quibble with this man.

“So Mr. Temple has gone to New Orleans with the Sieur de St. Gre,” I said.

Citizen Gignoux laid a fat finger on one side of his great nose.  The nose was red and shiny, I remember, and glistened in the sunlight.

“Ah,” said he, “‘tis no use tryin’ hide from you.  However, Monsieur Reetchie, you are the ver’ soul of honor.  And then your frien’!  I know you not betray the Sieur de St. Gre.  He is ver’ fon’ of you.”