All the pent up passion of years now burst forth in his soul, and as the train sped toward Virginia, he felt that love would run him mad ere he saw Antoinette once more.
While his train goes speeding on, let us learn a little of the woman whom he left years ago.
Antoinette Nermal Piedmont had been tried and excluded from her church on the charge of adultery.

She did not appear at the trial nor speak a word in her own defense.

Society dropped her as you would a poisonous viper, and she was completely ostracised.

But, conscious of her innocence and having an abiding faith in the justice of God, she moved along undisturbed by the ostracism.

The only person about whom she was concerned was Belton.
She yearned, oh! so much, to be able to present to him proofs of her chastity; but there was that white child.