Old Mistress opened the door, unable longer to bear the thought that he might be taking me into a confidence, and as she entered, the old man turned wrathfully upon me. "Yau can go to the d----!" he said, his voice high and sharp. "You may go with the rebels and be hanged with them. Madam, this negro boy is going with his master." "Why, of course," she said with a brightening countenance, and speaking as if I were but to discharge a trivial duty. "He will need someone to wait on him and that's Dan's place, I am sure. And besides, it won't be for long. Everybody knows that it won't be much of a war. The North will soon be compelled to grant every demand made by the South; so for gracious sake, let us not take it so to heart. Come on into the parlor. May will sing an old song for us." "Madam, I want no song. The rest of you may sing and make merry over the disgrace of my country, but I will not. Good-night." He strode out, Old Mistress following him, begging him to come back, but he went to his room up stairs and shut the door. Surely no one felt disposed to hear a song, no one except myself, as I listened to the old-time lullaby with which Titine was wont to soothe the little one to sleep. When I went to my Young Master's room I found him sitting there alone. His books were put out of sight and a sword lay upon his table. As I entered, he looked up at me and pointed to a chair. "I want to talk to you," he said, and when I had sat down, he continued: "I will not compel you to go with me--" "I am going Mars. Bob," I broke in. He looked at me with a sad smile. "Dan, you are a faithful friend." "I am a grateful slave, sir. And never but once was I ungrateful, and then my heart was on fire and my soul smothered with the smoke that arose. Titine laughed at me when I asked her to be my wife. She said that our marriage would be but a mockery, the multiplication of miseries; and I would have run away with her, but she told me that she did not love me. Don't credit me with more than my due. I am a weak man and under certain conditions might forget a great favor and prove treacherous. Don't trust me too far." "I would trust you to the end of the earth," he said. "You are a negro, but you are a gentleman. You say Titine doesn't love you?" he continued after pausing to reflect. "What sort of a creature is she? What does she expect?" "I don't know what she expects, but I believe that she hopes one day to be a nun. Her old mistress poisoned her."