at such a time, when light and water were both fading, and the
blackness of the Marsh was once more reasserting itself, that a
small boat was creeping along one of the tortuous inlets, at times
half hiding behind the bank like a wounded bird. As it slowly
penetrated inland it seemed to be impelled by its solitary occupant
in a hesitating uncertain way, as if to escape observation rather
than as if directed to any positive bourn. Stopping beside a bank
of reeds at last, the figure rose stoopingly, and drew a gun from
between its feet and the bottom of the boat. As the light fell
upon its face, it could be seen that it was James Culpepper! James
Culpepper! hardly recognizable in the swollen features, bloodshot
eyes, and tremulous hands of that ruined figure! James Culpepper,
only retaining a single trace of his former self in his look of set
and passionate purpose! And that purpose was to kill himself--to
be found dead, as his father had been before him--in an open boat,
adrift upon the Marsh!

It was not the outcome of a sudden fancy. The idea had first come
to him in a taunting allusion from the drunken lips of one of his
ruder companions, for which he had stricken the offender to the
earth. It had since haunted his waking hours of remorse and
hopeless fatuity; it had seemed to be the one relief and atonement
he could make his devoted sister; and, more fatuous than all, it
seemed to the miserable boy the one revenge he would take upon the
faithless coquette, who for a year had played with his simplicity,
and had helped to drive him to the distraction of cards and drink.
Only that morning Colonel Preston had forbidden him the house; and
now it seemed to him the end had come. He raised his distorted
face above the reedy bank for a last tremulous and half-frightened
glance at the landscape he was leaving forever. A glint in the