"
"And you had to shoot him?"
"No, I didn't even shoot at him. I couldn't, Smith; _he looked so much
like me_. It was like seeing my own ghost. All the time I had him
something kept saying to me, 'You're your own prisoner--you're your own
prisoner.' And--do you know?--that thing comes back to me now every time I
get into the least sort of a tight place!"
"I wish it would come to me," I responded. A slave girl brought his coat
and our talk remained unfinished until five years after the war.
III
Gregory had been brought up on the shore of Mississippi Sound, a beautiful
region fruitful mainly in apathy of character. He was a skilled lover of
sail-boats. When we all got back to New Orleans, paroled, and cast about
for a living in the various channels "open to gentlemen," he, largely, I
think, owing to his timid notion of his worth, went into the rough
business of owning and sailing a small, handsome schooner in the "Lake
trade," which, you know, includes Mississippi Sound. I married, and for
some time he liked much to come and see us--on rainy evenings, when he
knew we should be alone. He was in love yet, as he had been when we were
fellow-absentees from camp, and with the same girl.
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