"I cannot go with you," she repeated in tones of the deepest
distress,--"I _cannot_ go with you, for I promised my dear father the
night before he died."

He looked at her for an instant, and then, drawing her close to him,
he said: "It shall be just as you wish, darling. I will bring a
clergyman to the house of my friend, and we will be married before you
sail."

Rosa, without venturing to look up, said, in a faltering tone: "I
cannot bear to bring degradation upon you, Gerald. It seems wrong to
take advantage of your generous forgetfulness of yourself. When you
first told me you loved me, you did not know I was an octoroon, and
a--slave."

"I knew your mother was a quadroon," he replied; "and as for the rest,
no circumstance can degrade _you_, my Rose Royal."

"But if your plan should not succeed, how ashamed you would feel to
have us seized!" said she.

"It _will_ succeed, dearest. But even if it should not, you shall
never be the property of any man but myself."

"_Property_!"! she exclaimed in the proud Gonsalez tone, striving to
withdraw herself from his embrace.

He hastened to say: "Forgive me, Rosabella. I am so intoxicated with
happiness that I cannot be careful of my words. I merely meant to