another face than hers, an older, a different, though not less beautiful
face, and Hugh shuddered as he thought how it must have changed ere
this--thought of the anguish which stole into the dark, brown eyes when
first the young girl learned how cruelly she had been betrayed. Why
hadn't he saved her? What had she done to him that he should treat her
so, and where was she now? Possibly she was dead. He almost hoped she
was, for if she were, the two were then together, his golden-haired and
brown, for thus he designated the two.

Larger and fuller grew the veins upon his forehead, as memory kept thus
faithfully at work, and so absorbed was Hugh in his reverie that until
twice repeated he did not hear his mother's anxious inquiry:

"What is that noise? It sounds like some one in distress."

Hugh started at last, and, after listening for a moment he, too, caught
the sound which had so alarmed his mother, and made 'Lina stop her
reading. A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant's wail,
now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind
shifted its course and drove first at the uncurtained window of the
sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors of the gloomy hall.

"It is some one in the storm, though I can't imagine why any one should
be abroad to-night," Hugh said, going to the window and peering out into
the darkness.

"Lyd's child, most likely. Negro young ones are always squalling, and I
heard her tell Aunt Chloe at supper time that Tommie had the colic,"
'Lina remarked opening again the book she was reading, and with a slight
shiver drawing nearer to the fire.