"I had ventured to seize her unresisting hand, but as I concluded the sentence, she withdrew it, and covered her face with her handkerchief, pressing it hard, and breathing short. At the same time I noticed some confusion with her distress, though without anger. This imboldened me to proceed. "'It may appear like double presumption in me to ask an explanation before I can proffer a suit, which may be instantly and indignantly rejected, either with or without your history.' "'I will not prudishly affect to misunderstand you, in either of the prominent points of your remarks,' said she, her head sinking in modest guise, 'but before I reply to them, will you tell me whence you have ever heard any thing against me.' "The question went straight to my suspicious heart, and rankled there; insomuch that I coughed and hemmed at it several times ineffectually; her eyes being riveted on me all the while, like a judge's upon a detected thief--I felt that her pure and searching gaze was far more honest than my own, and I should speedily have begun an explanation if her father had not at that instant entered the room. I thought he saw and disrelished the matter in hand, for he seated himself in a chair, in a certain manner, by which one understands a person to say, 'I'll stay all night, if you have no objections.' I will be up by daylight in the morning, lest the old gentleman steal a march upon me. "Yours truly, "V. CHEVILLERE." CHAPTER X. B. RANDOLPH TO V. CHEVILLERE. "Savannah, 18--. "DEAR FRIEND, "After despatching my last letter, not knowing exactly what else to do with myself in the present state of affairs, I set out on horseback, telling the family that I wished to see a little more of Carolina, but inwardly resolved to follow the horse's nose wherever he might lead, and continue thus to ride and thus to be led until I might gather up my scattered thoughts and determine what course to pursue. "I will not deny, that on the second day in the afternoon, about three o'clock (truth is always precise, you know), I discovered in one corner of the storehouse of my thoughts a secret design to try 'Bell' by a leave-taking, absence, and reappearance. If you had been upon the ground to charge me with the intention, I should no doubt have sworn upon a stack of Testaments that it was not so; and I could have done so honestly. You have looked inwards too often not to know, that in wandering through the dreary passages of one's own mind, we blunder by accident upon many obscure motives, which, if boldly charged with them before we set out on such a pilgrimage, we should stoutly deny.