“I’ll never forgive him,” he said to Rossie, who had stood silently by, appalled at the storm of passion such as she had never seen before, until at last, forgetful of Everard’s charge not to interfere, she roused in his defense. “Yes, you will forgive him,” she said. “You must. He is your son, and though I don’t know what he has done to make you so angry, I am sure it is not sufficient for you to treat him so, and you will send for him to come back. I know where he’s gone. He came and told me he was going, though I did not think it would be till this morning, when I hoped you might make it up.” “And so he asked you to intercede for him as you have been in the habit of doing, and maybe told you the nice thing he had done?” the judge said, forgetting her assertion that she did not know. “No, sir. Oh, no,” Rossie cried. “He did not ask me to intercede; he said, on the contrary, that I was on no account to mention him, and he did not tell me what it was about, except that it happened long ago; and he is so sorry and has tried to be good since. You know he was trying, Judge Forrest, and you will forgive him, won’t you?” “By the lord Harry, no! and you would not ask it if you knew the disgrace he has brought upon me. I’ll fix him!” was the judge’s angry reply, as he broke away from her, and striding down the stairs took his hat from the hall-stand, and hurried to his office. Great was the consternation among the servants in the Forrest household when it was known that Mr. Everard had left the house, and gone no one knew whither, and many were the whispered surmises as to the cause of his going. “Some row between him and old mass’r,” John said, and his solution of the mystery was taken as the correct one, the negroes all siding with Mr. Everard, who was very popular with them. Old Axie, the cook, ventured to question Rosamond a little; but Rossie kept her own counsel, and, returning to her room, was crying herself sick, when a message came that Beatrice was asking for her. Immediately after reading Everard’s note, Beatrice had driven over to the Forrest House, where she was admitted at once to Rossie’s room, and heard all that Rossie knew of the events of the previous night. “Oh, Miss Beatrice,” Rossie said, “why did you refuse him? He told me about it, and I ’most know if you had said yes it would all have been so different.” Bee’s face was scarlet as she replied: “He told you that, and nothing more?” “Yes, he said something about wouldn’t and couldn’t,—I don’t know what, for it is all confused to me. I thought you liked him and he liked you. He said he did, and he bade me tell you that you were the purest and sweetest woman in the world, and the best, or something like that, and I think you ought to marry him, I do,” and Rossie looked reproachfully at poor Bee, who was very pale, and whose voice was sad and low as she said: