"Yes; I know who I'm talking to," he said coolly. "But as the major
don't, I reckon you won't tell him."
"Stand away from that horse!" she said, her whole face taking the
grayish color of her lips, but her black eyes growing smaller and
brighter. "Hand me those reins, and let me pass! What canaille are you
to stop me?"
"I thought so," returned the man, without altering his position; "you
don't know ME. You never saw ME before. Well, I'm Jim Dawson, the nephew
of L'Hommadieu, YOUR OLD MASTER!"
She gripped the iron rail of the seat as if to leap from it, but checked
herself suddenly and leaned back, with a set smile on her mouth that
seemed stamped there. It was remarkable that with that smile she flung
away her old affectation of superciliousness for an older and ruder
audacity, and that not only the expression, but the type of her face
appeared to have changed.
"I don't say," continued the man quietly, "that he didn't MARRY you
before he died. But you know as well as I do that the laws of his State
didn't recognize the marriage of a master with his octoroon slave! And
you know as well as I do that even if he had freed you, he couldn't
change your blood.
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