must not!"

"And why not?"

"Because,"--and she hesitated. Just then Miriam took up the unfinished
sentence,"--because to join the secesh is to raise your hands agin your
own race."

"My own race?" and Louis laughed scornfully. "I think you are talking
more wildly than Camilla. What do you mean, Miriam?"

"I mean," said she, stung by his scornful words, "I mean that you, Louis
Le Croix, white as you look, are colored, and that you are my own
daughter's child, and if it had not been for Miss Camilla, who's been
such an angel to you, that you would have been a slave to-day, and then
you wouldn't have been a Confederate."

At these words a look of horror and anguish passed over the face of Le
Croix, and he turned to Camilla, but she was deadly pale, and trembling
like an aspen leaf; but her eyes were dry and tearless.

"Camilla," said he, turning fiercely to his adopted sister, "Tell me, is
there any truth in these words? You are as pale as death, and trembling
like a leaf,--tell me if there is any truth in these words," turning and
fixing his eyes on Miriam, who stood like some ancient prophetess, her
lips pronouncing some fearful doom, while she watched in breathless
anguish the effect upon the fated victim.

"Yes, Louis," said Camilla, in a voice almost choked by emotion. "Yes,
Louis, it is all true."