She hurried to the balcony, and attached the cord, which was about five feet long, to the iron railing, then with the help of this cord she dropped lightly to the ground. She lighted unhurt upon the soft earth of a flower-bed, but the slender ropes broke with her weight, and the best part remained in her hand. She was free! Free did she think, when still within a few paces of her master? Swift as the wind she flew from the villa in the direction of the river-side, scarce knowing which path she took in her eagerness to escape. Her footsteps made no sound upon the dewy turf, and she did not hear another footstep hurrying close behind her. A broad lawn stretched before her, and beyond that a thick plantation. Her anxiety was to reach this friendly shelter, for the moonlight night was bright and clear as day, and she trembled lest she should be perceived from the windows of the villa. She was nearing the plantation when an iron hand was laid upon her shoulder, and turning round with a scream of mingled anguish and terror, she confronted Augustus Horton bare-headed in the moonlight. He had watched her escape from the window of his own apartment, and had lingered long enough to allow her to imagine herself free before he had left the house in pursuit of her. "So, Cora," he said, "this is the way you repay me for my foolish indulgence. This is how you show your gratitude for being received at Hortonville like a princess! Do you know how we treat runaway slaves in the South?" "No," answered Cora, with a look of defiance. "Oh! You don't; I'm afraid they neglected your education in England." "They did," replied the Octoroon; "the free citizens of that land of liberty forgot to teach me that beneath God's bounteous heaven there live a race of men who traffic in the bodies and souls of their fellow-creatures! That was a lesson they forgot to teach me." "Then I'm afraid you'll have to learn it here," said the planter; "and if you don't take care what you're about, it may be taught you in rather a rough fashion. But why, why, Cora, do you compel me to use this language? It is not the right of a master that I would exercise, but that of a lover." "You forget," replied Cora, with icy coldness, "that I love, and am beloved by an honorable man, who would make me his wife." "It is you who must forget that, Cora," answered Augustus, fiercely. "Henceforth, Gilbert Margrave and you are strangers. You are mine, I have kept my promise; I have given the fifty thousand dollars owed me by your father as the price of this moment. But it is not as a master that I address you. The rigors of slavery are not for you. Reward my devotion with one smile, one word of encouragement, and a life of luxury shall be yours; but, if you value your own happiness, do not force me to remember--"