Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/155

 He did not know, he did not care, except for the thought that he might appear a craven in Margaret's eyes. Philip had been too noble to speak, and he had been base enough to hold his peace! Fool that he had been, and worse than fool! So he raved and cursed his folly, and for days together shut himself in his own house and saw no one.

Robert Feuardent was of pure Creole descent. His grandfather, who had come to Louisiana when a child, had married a Frenchwoman, and his father had taken to wife an Andalusian girl. It was from his mother that Robert inherited his beauty; and there was much in his nature that recalled that parent, whom he could barely remember. His father had been a rich man before the war, and unlike the majority of his fellow-citizens, had retained a part of his fortune after peace had been established. He had, to be sure, declared himself an enemy of the United States Government, and thus given up all his property in the State of Louisiana to confiscation, and he had received a small document, duly signed by the city marshal, attesting this act of—what shall we call it, devotion, or folly? A little of both, perhaps. To be sure, the only alternative was the oath of allegiance to a government he had given four years of his life and a large portion of his