Durward

From place to place and from scene to scene Durward had hurried,
caring nothing except to forget, if possible, the past, and knowing
not where he was going, until he at last found himself in Richmond,
Virginia. This was his mother's birthplace, and as several of her
more distant relatives were still living here, he determined to stop
for awhile, hoping that new objects and new scenes would have some
power to rouse him from the lethargy into which he had fallen.
Constantly in terror lest he should hear of 'Lena's disgrace, which
he felt sure would be published to the world, he had, since his
departure from Laurel Hill, resolutely refrained from looking in a
newspaper, until one morning some weeks after his arrival at Richmond.

Entering a reading-room, he caught up the Cincinnati Gazette, and
after assuring himself by a hasty glance that it did not contain what
he so much dreaded to see, he sat down to read it, paying no
attention to the date, which was three or four weeks back.
Accidentally he cast his eye over the list of arrivals at the Burnet
House, seeing among them the names of "Mr. H. R. Graham, and Miss L.
R. Graham, Woodford county, Kentucky!"

"_Audacious_! How dare they be so bold!" he exclaimed, springing to
his feet and tearing the paper in fragments, which he scattered upon
the floor.

"Considerable kind of uppish, 'pears to me," said a strange voice,
having in its tone the nasal twang peculiar to a certain class of
Yankees.