He was more and more absent from the cottage, and made few professions of regret for such frequent separations.

Some weeks after Flora's disappearance, he announced his intention to travel in the North during the summer months.

Rosabella looked up in his face with a pleading expression, but pride prevented her from asking whether she might accompany him.
She waited in hopes he would propose it; but as he did not even think of it, he failed to interpret the look of disappointment in her expressive eyes, as she turned from him with a sigh.
"Tom will come with the carriage once a week," said he; "and either he or Joe will be here every night." "Thank you," she replied.
But the tone was so sad that he took her hand with the tenderness of former times, and said, "You are sorry to part with me, Bella Rosa ?" "How can I be otherwise than sorry," she asked, "when I am all alone in the world without you?
Dear Gerald, are we always to live thus?
Will you never acknowledge me as your wife ?" "How can I do it," rejoined he, "without putting myself in the power of those cursed creditors?
It is no fault of mine that your mother was a slave." "We should be secure from them in Europe," she replied.

"Why couldn't we live abroad ?" "Do you suppose my rich uncle would leave me a cent if he found out I had married the daughter of a quadroon ?" rejoined he.

"I have met with losses lately, and I can't afford to offend my uncle.