“A letter for you, sir,” he said, putting it down upon the table by the Colonel’s chair, and then lingering on the pretence of adjusting a curtain and brushing up the hearth, but really waiting to see what effect the letter would have.

It was different from what he expected.  With one glance at the superscription, the Colonel grew deathly pale, and his hands shook so that the letter dropped upon the floor.  Peter picked it up and handed it to him, saying, “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes, by leaving me, and holding your tongue!  There’s the devil to pay!” was the answer.

Peter was accustomed to hearing of his master’s debts in that direction, and to being told to hold his tongue, and he answered, “All right, sir,” and left the room.  For some moments the Colonel sat perfectly still, his heart beating so fast that he could scarcely breathe.  Then he opened Jake’s letter, and read as follows: 

“Palmetto Clarin’, Oct. —­, 18—.

“Mister Kurnel Krompton,

“Deer Sir: 

“Glory to God.  I’se done sung all day for his mussy in lettin’ me heer from lil Miss Dory onc’t mo’ an’ ‘noin’ she ain’t ded as I feared she was.  Mas’r Minister Mason, who done ’tended the funeral of t’other Miss Dory done tole me how she’s livin’ with you, an’ a lil off in her mind.  The lam’!  What happened her, I wonder?  Her granny, ole Miss Lucy, was quar.  All the Harrises was quar.  Mebby she got it from them.  A site of me will cure her sho’.  Tell her I’se comin’ to see her as soon as I hear from you that it is her, sho’.  Thar might be some mistake, an’ I doan’ want to take the long journey for nothin’, ‘case I’m ole, tho’ I feels mighty peart now wid de news.  Rite me wen you git this.  I shall wait till I har, an’ then start to onc’t.

“Yours to command,

“JAKE HARRIS.”

“P.S.—­Mandy Ann, you ’members her, what took care of lil chile.  She’s a grown woman now in course, an’ has ten chillen, ’sides Ted.  You ’members Ted, on de ‘Hatty.’  No ’count at all; but Mandy Ann, wall, she’s a whopper, an’ when she hears de nuse, she ‘most had de pow’.  She sen’s her regrets, an’ would come, too, if she hadn’t so many moufs to feed, an’ Ted doin’ nothin’ but playin’ gemman.

“Onc’t mo’, yours,

“JAKE.”

To describe the Colonel’s state of mind as he read this letter is impossible.  He forgot the pain in his leg and knee in the greater sensation of the cold, prickly feeling which ran through his veins, making his fingers feel like sticks, and powerless to hold the letter, which dropped to the floor.  With every year he had hugged closer and closer the secret of his life, becoming more and more morbid and more fearful, lest in some way his connection with the palmetto clearing should be known and he fall from the high pedestal on which he had stood so long, and from which his fall would be greater because he had been there so long.  It would all be right after he was dead.  He had seen to that, and didn’t care what the world would say when he was not alive to hear it.  But he was very much alive now, and his sin bade fair to find him out.