He was Captain Le Gaire's son by a slave mother.

Bell told me later that the mother was sent back into the fields, and died as a result.

That would account for the hate the boy felt against the father." "How--how old was he ?" her trembling lips white.
"Not over eighteen." Billie hid her face on my shoulder, sobbing silently.

A moment the surgeon stood looking down at us compassionately.
"I am going to have both you and your sergeant taken up stairs," he said at last.

"Come, Miss Hardy, you have no right to break down now.".