The cut over his eye was paining him, he said, and if they would excuse him he would retire to his room early, and should probably be all right on the morrow. The night was hot and sultry, and even the light breeze from the river seemed oppressive and laden with thunder, and for hours Everard lay awake thinking of the future, which stretched before him so drearily with that burden on his mind. How he wished that it might prove a dream, from which he should awake to find himself free once more,—free to marry Josephine if he chose, and he presumed he should, but not till his college days were over, and he could take her openly and publicly as a true man takes the woman he loves and honors. How he hated to be a sneak and a coward, and he called himself by these names many times, and loathed himself for the undefinable something creeping over him, and which made him shrink even from Josephine herself as Josephine. He said he did not care a picayune for the butcher and the cook, and he did not care for the dollar jewelry and cotton lace, though he would rather his mother and Bee had not used the opprobrious terms, but he did care for the _sham_ of which his mother had spoken, and which even Rossie had detected. Was Josey a sham, and if so, what was his life with her to be? Alas for Everard! he was only just entering the cloud which was to overshadow him for so many wretched years. At last he fell into a troubled sleep, from which he was aroused by the noise of the storm of rain which had swept down the river and was beating against the house, but above the storm there was another sound, Rossie calling to him in tones of affright, and bidding him hasten to his mother, who was dying. Of all which followed next Everard retained in after life but a vague consciousness. There was a confused dressing in the dark, a hurrying to his mother, whose white face turned so eagerly toward him, and whose pallid lips were pressed upon his brow as they prayed God to keep him from evil, and bring him at last to the world she was going to. There were words of love and tender parting to the stricken husband and heart-broken Rossie, who had been to her like a daughter, and whom she committed to the care of both Everard and his father, as a precious legacy left in their charge. Then, drawing Everard close to her, she whispered so low that no one else could hear: “Forgive me if I seemed harsh in what I said of Josephine. I only meant it for your good. I may have been mistaken; I hope I was. I hope she is good, and true, and womanly, and if she is, and you love her, her birth is of no consequence, none whatever. God bless you, my child, and her, too!”