"While James was reading the letter, the General said to his wife—

"'I find that I shall be obliged to go back to Cadiz, so I will bring Zillah home.'

"James crumpled the letter in his hand, and called out in so loud and agitated a voice that Mrs. Harrington absolutely started—

"'I will go back for Zillah, mother.'

"The General turned a little in his chair, glanced at me, then regarded James—his eyebrows slightly raised with an expression of surprise.

"'Upon my word,' said he, pleasantly as ever, 'I scarcely see the necessity for your playing preux chevalier in this case, James.'

"'Not the slightest,' said Mrs. Harrington. 'But James is always thoughtful for others.'

"'Always,' the General said.

"'I have nothing to detain me here—I have seen Seville thoroughly, and shall be glad to make this journey,' James said, without paying attention to what had passed.

"I felt my cheeks tingling with impatience and indignation. What did this eagerness and solicitude mean? Did he forget how unbecoming it was—did he not remember how this strange, passionate, ill-regulated creature, in spite of her beauty, her marvelous eyes, and her bewitching voice, belonged to a race separated from us by all natural laws! Did he forget that she was a menial—a slave?

"The General was smiling still, and smoothing a long curl of his wife's hair that had broken loose from the comb and fell over the cushion in a shining wave.

"'James is so full of his scheme of becoming a modern Don Quixote, that he did not even hear me say that I would bring Zillah on here,' he said.

"'It strikes me that you are inclined to do Don Quixote yourself, sir,' exclaimed James, and his voice was sharp and harsh.

"'Excuse me—you misunderstand,' replied the General, in a rather drawling, sarcastic tone; 'if I were inclined to emulate Cervantes, here I think my taste is sufficiently patrician for me to display it in some other quarter than toward my wife's domestic.'"The tone was somewhat sneering, and the speech was a little affected and fatuous, but I knew he said it as a reproof to James, and he deserved it well.

"'I am sure the courier seems the proper person to send back,' Mrs. Harrington said, a little disturbed by this unusual tone between her husband and son. 'Why should'nt he go, General?'

"'You are right, my treasure, as you always are,' he replied. 'But as I began to tell you, I am obliged to return to Cadiz myself.'

"'If you have business there I can transact it for you,' persisted James.

"'Thanks! I have the utmost confidence in your judgment, but this is a matter that I feel inclined to take in my own hands.'

"'Business in Cadiz!' muttered James, ironically.

"His mother did not catch the words, but the General and I did. The General only smiled—he looked a little contemptuous now.

"'Why do you have to go back, dear?' his wife asked.

"'Simply because I got a letter this morning from that stupid banker, Henriquez. He has made a muddle of buying those three pictures we wanted, and that Englishman who was so crazy about them will get the lot after all, unless I go on myself.'

"'Oh, I wouldn't lose that Cano for the world,' cried Mrs. Harrington; 'I have set my heart on having it in my bed room at home.'

"'Precisely the reason I made up my mind to go, dear lady,' said the General, lifting her pretty hand to his lips with exquisite gallantry. 'I am a foolish man, and I cannot bear to have you disappointed in anything—be it of importance or the veriest trifle.'

"'Oh, how good you are,' said Mrs. Harrington, with the grateful tears swimming in her eyes. 'Far—far, far too good to me.'"'I could not equal your deserts, my best one,' he answered. 'Besides, those three pictures are very valuable—worth double what I can get them for, and as a man who likes to further the cause of art in our new country, I should not feel justified in neglecting this opportunity. Am I not right?'

"'Perfectly,' she said.

"'Miss Crawford thinks so too, I hope!' he asked politely.

"I bowed—I was too much shaken by a world of strange, inexplicable emotions, to trust my voice just then.

"'I can attend to that business easily enough,' James added; 'and you profess to hate travelling.'

"'I shall be upheld by a consciousness that I am performing my duty,' replied the General, laughing. 'No, James, I am convinced that unless I go myself, we shall lose those pictures. I really have, what superstitious people call a premonition, in regard to the matter.'

"'It is useless to prolong the discussion,' exclaimed James, angrily, rising from his chair.

"'Oh quite,' replied the General, 'I am an indolent man, but a perfect Spartan in the cause of duty—pray give me some credit, ladies.'

"'I can only think how I shall miss you,' exclaimed his wife.

"'My dear friend, we shall both have one pleasant anticipation amid the pain of separation—that of meeting soon again.'

"James was walking up and down the room, moody and preoccupied.

"'When shall you go?' Mrs. Harrington asked.

"'This very day—I must lose no time.'

"'And when will you be back?'

"'Within the week; I shall make all haste, you may be sure.'"'But you will stay in Cadiz long enough to rest,' she said anxiously; 'you must not make yourself ill.'

"'Always thoughtful—always kind!' he half whispered. Then he added aloud—'I shall send for Zillah to join me there, and will bring her on; so you see everything arranges itself admirably.'

"James paused suddenly in his impatient march up and down the room, and said more quietly than he had spoken during the whole conversation—'I will go with you, General—I shall be glad of a little change.'

"'My dear friend, few things could be pleasanter to me than to have your society, but you forget that it is quite out of the question here; you would leave your mother and Miss Crawford alone.'

"I could not keep silence a moment longer—if I had died for it, I must have spoken.

"'We have plenty of friends,' I said; 'we should do very well. Mr. Harrington could have a pleasant trip, and leave us quite satisfied that Zillah would not be carried off by bandits on the road.'

"I did not look at James as I spoke. I felt that I neither colored or showed any emotion—it seemed as if I was only surprised and slightly disgusted at so much discussion concerning a servant.

"'Oh, you must not go, James,' his mother said. 'I should die of fright in twenty-four hours.'

"'I see that it would be out of the question,' returned he, in a voice that wavered between vexation and trouble.

"The General cast another quick glance toward me—that strange fleeting look which I had detected several times before, and which proved to me that the suspicions in my own mind, to which I could scarcely have given a name, in fact but vaguely understood, had a place in his.

"James turned to leave the room; the General had risen and was standing at a little distance from me, bending over a vase of flowers and inhaling their perfume with that love of all beautiful things which was one of his most prominent characteristics.

"In leaving the room, Mr. Harrington had to pass near him, and I distinctly heard the General say—'You surprise me! Imprudent, most imprudent.'

"James passed on as if he had not heard the words, but I saw his face, and I knew by the pale wrath that locked his features and glittered in his eyes, that not a syllable of that quiet remonstrance upon the glaring impropriety of his behavior, had escaped him.

"The General had evidently forgotten that I sat near enough to have overheard his remark, but as he turned and looked at me, I suppose he saw by the expression of my countenance that I had done so. He seemed troubled. I knew that he divined the vague suspicions that disturbed me, and was annoyed to think that any words of his should so clearly have shown me that he shared my ideas in regard to James' singular conduct.

"I left Mrs. Harrington and the General together, for I knew that she would wish to be alone with him to receive his farewell; for it was so seldom that he left her, and her nerves were so fragile and excitable from long illness, that this brief separation and journey were matters of painful import to her.

"But whatever the General's decision in any case might be, it was seen to be right in her eyes; and it was not wonderful that she trusted him so implicitly, for his manner to her was always perfect, his care and attention to her unvarying; besides all, his judgment was seldom at fault.

"I went away to my room; as I passed through the corridor, I heard Lucy Eaton's voice on the landing above, and I hurried on, for I was in no mood to listen patiently to her girlish chatter.

"I was alone for a long hour, and it was a sad, dark watch that I kept there by myself in that gloomy chamber. The very fact that so many varying suspicions disturbed me, that they were all so vague and shifting, made my reflections full of unrest. But I could settle upon nothing—could form no conclusion.

"Only the other day I had believed that he loved Lucy Eaton—at least that he was captivated by her golden curls, blue eyes, and her pretty childish ways; the weak fascinations that seem to possess such strange power for the strongest men."