Old Sam pitied Hugh, and after a moment's silence his pity expressed
itself in words. Laying his dark hand on Hugh's bowed head, he said: "Poor Massah Hugh. Sam kin feel for you ef he is black. Niggers kin love
like the white folks does."
"What do you mean? What do you know?" Hugh asked, a little haughtily,
while Sam fearlessly replied: "'Scuse me, massah, but I hears dem dis mornin'--hears de city chap
sparkin' Miss Ellis, and seen his arm spang round her, too, with her
sweet face, white as wool, lyin' in his buzzum."
"You saw this after I was gone?" Hugh asked, eagerly, and Sam replied: "Yes, massah, strue as preachin', and I'se sorry for massah. I prays
that he may somewhar find anodder Miss Ellis, only not quite so nice,
'cause he can't."
Hugh smiled bitterly, as he rejoined: "Pray rather that I may find Adah, that is the object now for which I
live; and, Sam, keep what you have seen to yourself. Be faithful to Miss
Johnson and kind to mother. There's no telling when I shall return. I
may join the Federal Army, but not a word of this to any one."
"Oh, massah," Sam began, but Hugh left him ere he finished, and
compelled himself to join the group on the front side of the building,
startling them as he had Sam by announcing his determination to start on
the morrow for New York.
Alice's exclamation of surprise was lost as Irving rejoined: "Then we may travel together, as I, too, leave in the morning."
Hugh gave him a rapid, searching glance, and then his eye fell on Alice,
whose white face he jealously fancied was caused by the prospect of
parting so soon with her affianced husband. He could not guess whether
she were going to Europe or not. A few weeks seemed so short a time in
which to prepare, that he half believed she might induce Mr. Stanley to
defer the trip till autumn. But he would not ask. She would surely tell
him at the last, he thought. She ought, at least, to trust him as a
brother, and say to him: "Hugh, I am engaged to Mr. Stanley, and when you return, if you are long
gone, I shall probably not be here."
But she said to him no such thing, and only the whiteness of her face
and the occasional quivering of her long eyelashes, showed that she felt
at all, as at an early hour next morning she presided at the breakfast
prepared for the travelers. There was no tremor in her voice, no
hesitancy in her manner, and a stranger could not have told which of the
young men before her held her heart in his possession, or which had kept
her wakeful the entire night, revolving the propriety of telling him ere
he left that the Golden Hair he loved so much was willing to be his.