The unhappy girl had been brought from the auction room to Hortonville in Augustus's phaeton, the thorough-bred horses of which made brief work of the journey from New Orleans. Adelaide Horton and her aunt, Mrs. Montresor, were still at their city residence. Cora scarce dared to think why Augustus had chosen to take her to Hortonville, rather than to his town house. The answer to that question was too terrible. Could there be any doubt as to his motive in choosing this lonely villa for the retreat of the Octoroon? Was it not that the wretched girl might be more fully in his power? The chamber to which Cora had been conducted was even more luxuriously furnished than her own tastefully decorated apartment in the pavilion on the borders of Lake Pontchartrain, but the Octoroon looked at the splendor around her with a shudder. She knew that it was not thus that slaves were ordinarily treated, and she knew the sinister meaning of this seeming kindness. The young mulattress who led Cora to her apartment informed her that she had been appointed to wait upon Miss Leslie. Cora smiled bitterly. "Who told you to call me, Miss Leslie?" she asked. "My master, Mr. Horton." "Alas, my poor girl," answered Cora, "I am no longer Miss Leslie. I am a slave like yourself, with no name save that which my master chooses to give me. He has bought me; bought me at the auction yonder. Name, fame, happiness, honor, ay, and even soul--as he thinks--are his." In the bitterness of her despair she buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud. The mulattress was touched to the heart by this burst of grief. "My dear mistress, pray do not weep thus," she said. "You will be no slave here, I know, for our master has had these beautiful rooms prepared on purpose for you, and you are to be treated as a queen." "A queen!" said Cora, hysterically. "Yes, the empress of a profligate's hour of pleasure, to be trampled beneath his feet when the whim has passed. Go, my good girl; why should I distress you with my griefs. You can never understand my misery." It was impossible, indeed, for this poor ignorant slave to comprehend the feelings of the highly educated and refined woman, torn from a father she adored, and from him who was to have rescued her from slavery, and made her a happy English wife. Cora dried her tears; and, affecting a calmness which she did not feel, dismissed the mulattress. The girl had lighted a shaded lamp upon an elegant little inlaid table, and had brought a tray loaded with delicacies for Cora's refreshment, but the Octoroon turned with a sickened heart from the rich food set before her. She had eaten nothing that day, and her lips and throat were parched and burning with inward fever. She poured out a glass of iced water and drained the cool liquid to the last drop. Then, throwing open the wide Venetian shutters, she looked out into the calm night. "What if there were yet hope? What if she could escape?"