There is nothing good in this life which Time does not improve. In ten days the better feelings which had led James Lorimer to seek his son in the path of moral and physical danger had grown as Divine seed does grow. This very night, in the scented breathless quiet, he was longing for David's return, and forming plans through which the future might atone for the past. Gradually the weary negroes went into the cabins, rolled themselves in their blankets and fell into that sound, dreamless sleep which is the compensation of hard labor. Only Lulu watched and thought with him. Suddenly she stood up and listened. There was a footstep in the avenue, and she knew it. But why did it linger, and what dreary echo of sorrow was there in it? "That is David's step, uncle; but what is the matter? Is he sick?" Then they both saw the young man coming slowly through the gloom, and the shadow of some calamity came steadily on before him. Lulu went to the top of the long flight of white steps, and put out her hands to greet him. He motioned her away with a woeful and positive gesture, and stood with hopeless yet half defiant attitude before his father. In a moment all the new tenderness was gone. In a voice stern and scornful he asked, "Well, sir, what is the matter? What hae ye been doing now?" "I have shot Whaley!" The words were rather breathed than spoken, but they were distinctly audible. The father rose and faced his wretched son. Lulu drew close to him, and asked, in a shocked whisper, "Dead?" "Dead!" "But you had a good reason, David; I know you had. He would have shot you?--it was in self-defence?--it was an accident? Speak, dear!" "He called me a coward, and--" "You shot him! Then you are a coward, sir!" said Lorimer, sternly; "and having made yourself fit for the gallows, you are a double coward to come here and force upon me the duty of arresting you. Put down your rifle, sir!" Lulu uttered a long low wail. "Oh, David, my love! why did you come here? Did you hope for pity or help in his heart? And what can I do Davie, but suffer with you?" But she drew his face down and kissed it with a solemn tenderness that taught the wretched man, in one moment, all the blessedness of a woman's devotion, and all the misery that the indulgence of his ungovernable temper had caused him. "We will hae no more heroics, Lulu. As a magistrate and a citizen it is my duty to arrest a murderer on his ain confession." "Your duty!" she answered, in a passion of scorn. "Had you done your duty to David in the past years, this duty would not have been to do. Your duty or anything belonging to yourself, has always been your sole care. Wrong Davie, wrong me, slay love outright, but do your duty, and stand well with the world and yourself! Uncle, you are a dreadful Christian!" "How dare you judge me, Lulu? Go to your own room at once!" "David, dearest, farewell! Fly!--you will get no pity here. Fly!" "Sit down, sir, and do not attempt to move!"