Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/284

 under the leads of the old Pontalba Building. By a curious action of the brain he remembered things which had made no impression on his mind at the moment they occurred, the dinner he had tried to eat at the club, the paper he had feigned to read, the words of the despatch which he had perused, but whose import he had not till now comprehended :—

Thebes, a sister city in a neighboring State, a city bound to New Orleans by the closest ties of affection and sympathy, cried to her for help in her hour of agony!

Philip Rondelet started to his feet as the words of the despatch flashed through his brain. His resolve was taken in that moment; and before the sun had risen he had completed his preparations for the journey that lay before him.

Therese was awaiting him. The few hours which she had passed in the society of a woman who had treated her with the simple and unquestioning politeness which is an essential of good breeding, had transformed the wild outcast of the night into a quiet, dignified woman who met the man who had but a few hours ago saved her