For days and weeks he lay in his miserable hiding place, almost untended save for the doctor's visits, and the bringing of his meals by one or another of his confederates, who would feed him with a rough sort of kindness, then go away again, leaving him to the solitary companionship of his own bitter thoughts. He longed for the pleasant society and gentle ministrations of his aunt, and he knew that if sent for she would come to him, and that his secret would be safe with her; but alas, how could he bear that she should know of his crime and its punishment? She who had so earnestly besought him to forsake his evil ways and live in peace and love with all men: she who had warned him again and again that "the way of transgressors is hard," and that "though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished." She who had loved, cared for, and watched over him with almost a mother's undying, unalterable tenderness and devotion. How ungrateful she would deem his repeated attempt against the home and husband of one whom she loved as her own child. She would not reprove him, she would not betray him, but he would know that in her secret heart she condemned him as a guilty wretch, a disgrace to her and all his relatives; and that would be worse, far worse to his proud spirit than the dreary loneliness of his present condition, and the lack of the bodily comforts she would provide. No, he would bear his bitter fate as best he might, and though he had proved the truth of her warning words, she should never know it, if he could keep it from her. Troops had arrived in the neighborhood the day after the raid on Ion; so to Boyd's other causes of distress was added the constant fear of detection and apprehension. This was one reason why the visits of his confreres were few and short. The Klan was said to have disbanded and outrages had ceased, but an investigation was going on and search being made for the guilty parties; also United States revenue officers were known to be in quest of illicit distilleries; to which class this one of Rood's belonged. "What's the news?" asked Boyd one morning while Savage was engaged in dressing his hurts. "Very bad; you'll have to get out of this at once if you don't want to be nabbed. A jail might be more comfortable in some respects, eh, old boy? but I s'pose you prefer liberty. "'Better to sit in Freedom's hall, With a cold damp floor, and a mouldering wall, Than to bend the neck or to bow the knee In the proudest palace of Slavery.' "Fine sentiment, eh, Boyd?" The doctor was just drunk enough to spout poetry without knowing or caring whether it was exactly apropos or not. "Very fine, though not quite to the point, it strikes me," answered Boyd, wincing under the not too gentle touch of the inebriate's shaking hand. "But how am I to get out of this? blind and nearly helpless as I am?"