Still gazing forward over the marsh, he stealthily held out his hand behind him as the rustling skirt came nearer.

At last his hand was touched--but even at that touch he started and turned quickly.
It was not his wife, but Rose!--her mulatto double! Her face was rigid with fright, her beady eyes staring in their china sockets, her white teeth chattering.

Yet she would have spoken.
"Hush!" he said, clutching her hand, in a fierce whisper.

"Not a word!" She was holding something white in her fingers; he snatched it quickly.
It was a note from his wife--not in the disguised hand of her first warning, but in one that he remembered as if it were a voice from their past.
"Forgive me for disobeying you to save you from capture, disgrace, or death--which would have come to you where you were going! I have taken Rose's pass.

You need not fear that your honor will suffer by it, for if I am stopped I shall confess that I took it from her.