"There is one point on which I agree with you," he said, slowly: "I am not like ever again to hear talk of this kind under my roof. But while we are thus amiably laying our hearts bare to each other, there is another thing to be said. Everywhere it is unpleasantly remarked that I am not master in my own house--that here there are two kinds of politics--that I am loyal and my wife is a rebel." "Oh, that is unfair! Truly, Philip, I have given no cause for such speech. Not a word have I spoken, ever, to warrant this. It would be not only wrong but presuming to do so, since I am but a woman, and have no more than a woman's partial knowledge of these things. If you had ever asked me I would have told you frankly, that, as against the Johnsons and Butlers and Whites, my feelings were with the people of my own flesh and blood; but as to my having ever spoken--" "Yes, I know what you would say," he broke in, with cold, measured words. "I can put it for you in a breath--I am an English gentleman; you are a Dutch foundling!" She looked at him, speechless and mentally staggered. In all her life it had never occurred to her that this thing could be thought or said. That it should be flung thus brutally into her face now by her husband--and he the very man who as a boy had saved her life--seemed to her astonished sense so incredible that she could only stare, and say nothing. While she still stood thus, the young aristocrat rose, jerked the bell-cord fiercely, and strode again to the escritoire, pulling forth papers from its recesses with angry haste. "Send Rab to me on the instant!" he called out to the slave who appeared. The under-sized, evil-faced creature who presently answered this summons was the son of a Scotch dependent of the Johnsons, half tinker, half trapper, and all ruffian, by an Indian wife. Rab, a young-old man, had the cleverness and vices of both strains of blood, and was Philip's most trusted servant, as he was Daisy's especial horror. He came in now, his black eyes sparkling close together like a snake's, and his miscolored hair in uncombed tangle hanging to his brows. He did not so much as glance at his mistress, but went to Philip, with a cool-- "What is it?" "There is much to be done to-night, Rab," said the master, assorting papers still as he spoke. "I am leaving Cairncross on a journey. It may be a long one; it may not." "It will at least be as long as Thompson's is distant," said the familiar.