Reynolds took no note of any thing around him. The sunshine, the bird-songs, the voice of the merry old freedman and the dying rustle of the now almost motionless air did not reach his senses. Again and again he stopped as if to rush back, his arms twitching, his face rigid, but all the time he was half aware that fate was binding him more firmly each moment. Already the sweet life of the past month had receded into the far, hazy distance, as if its sphere had whirled away to the remotest region of space, almost beyond the reach of his vision, and with it all the best of his nature, leaving him groveling and baffled, a clod on a barren field. "Drive me to Montgomery as fast as you can go, Dan," he said to the driver as he reached the gate and entered the landau. CHAPTER XIX. WHITHER? "Drive fast, Dan, I am in a great hurry," said Reynolds, as the mares again moved gently along the road in the direction of Montgomery. The negro waved his whip above the backs of the spirited animals, starting them into a rapid trot. The wheels made little noise on the light sandy surface over which they whirled. Reynolds sat bolt upright, looking neither to the right nor to the left, his vision introverted. He was calm as marble, so far as outward appearance went, and inwardly there was no commotion, but a cold, dull, smothering sense of defeat and despair. The woods on either side of the road were dull and soundless, save that, where the tall clumps of pines shot above the rest of the trees, their tops let fall a mellow roar which the slightest breeze has power to awaken in their frondous meshes. The negro presently began to sing, in a strangely melodious undertone, an old, old Alabama ditty; "Oh, poor Lucy Neal, Oh, poor Lucy Neal, And if I had you by my side, How happy I would feel!" Reynolds started, clenched his hands and began to breathe hard. "Dan," he cried, "drive back, drive back, I can't bear it!" Dan pulled up the mares and turned round in his seat: "What yo' say, boss?" he inquired, touching his hat and but half repressing his surprise. "Turn round and drive back. Be quick, make them go: do you hear?" "Yah, sah," answered Dan. A flush had sprung into Reynolds' cheeks in response to his sudden resolve. How could he ever have thought of abandoning her in this cowardly way? She is mine, he thought, she loves me, he has no right to her now: I will go back and claim my own with a force that shall be irresistible. "Drive faster, Dan, do you hear, drive faster!" "Yah, sah, boss." The mares put themselves forth to their utmost, gladly reaching back toward home. For a minute or two Reynolds was wholly in the power of this new mood. But it passed as suddenly as it had come, and again, with redoubled weight, the load of despair returned. "Hold up, Dan, hold up!" "Yah, sah." Dan once more brought the equipage to a standstill.