"I suppose I am your _prisoner_?" asked Harry, intently regarding Randolph's face. "You can keep me secluded until the twenty-fifth of December has passed. Is that the dodge?" "Brother, the door is open, and the way is free, whenever you wish to leave this house," was Randolph's calm reply. "Well, if I can make you out, may I be ----!" cried Harry, and the next moment uttered a groan of agony, for his back was very painful. "Why did you not take me to my hotel?" he said, in a peevish, impatient tone. "You forget that I did not know the name of your hotel," replied Randolph, "and beside, what place so fitting for a sick man as his brother's home?" Harry grew red in the face, and then burst into a laugh.--"We've been such good _brothers_ to each other!" The thought which had been working at Randolph's heart for hours, now found utterance in words,-- "Brother, O, brother! why can we not indeed be brothers?" his eyes flashed, his voice was deep and impassioned. "Children of one father, let us forget the past; let us bury all bitter memories, all feelings of hatred,--let us forget, forgive, and be as brothers to each other. Harry Royalton, my brother, there is my hand." He rose,--his chest heaving, his eyes dimmed by tears,--and reached forth his hand. Harry, completely overwhelmed by this unexpected appeal, reached forth his hand, but drew it back again. "No," he cried, as his face was flushed,--"not with a nigger." The contempt, the scorn, the rage which convulsed his face, as he said these words, cannot be depicted. CHAPTER III. THE HUSBAND AND THE PROFLIGATE. The boat was upon the river, borne onward over the wintery waves and through the floating ice, by the strong arms of two sturdy oarsmen. Behind, like a huge black wall, was the city, a faint line of light separating its roofs from the bleak sky. Around were the waves, loaded with piles of floating ice, which crashed together with incessant uproar; and through the gloom the boat drove onward, bearing one man, perchance two men, to certain death. Eugene and Robert, muffled in their cloaks, sat side by side on the stern; Beverly and his friend, the major, also muffled in their cloaks, sat side by side in the bow. Eugene had drawn his cloak over his face as if to hide even from the faint light, the agony which was gnawing at his heart-strings. "In case anything should happen," whispered Robert, "have you any message to send to _her_?" "None," was the reply, uttered in a choking voice. "Damn her!" said Robert, between his teeth. Meanwhile, in the bow of the boat, Beverly, shuddering within his thick cloak, not so much from cold as from a mental cause, said to his friend, the major,-- "No way to get out o' this, I suppose, major?" "None," said the major. "I'd give a horse for a mouthful of good brandy----" "Here it is," and the major drew a wicker flask from the folds of his cloak. "I always carry a pocket-pistol; touch her light."