“Without even giving you a ride?” Ethan Ridley laid down the empty revolver as he asked the question and, though the query earned him a reproving glance from Washington Faulconer, it was also clear the older man wanted to know the answer. Starbuck offered no reply, but he had no need to. Dominique had made him into a fool, and his foolishness was obvious.

“Poor Nate!” Washington Faulconer was amused. “What are you going to do now? Go home? Your father won’t be too happy! And what of Major Trabell? He’ll be wanting to nail your gizzards to his barn door, won’t he? That and get his money back! Is he a southerner?”

“A Pennsylvanian, sir. But his son pretends to be a southerner.”

“So where is the son? Still at the Spotswood?”

“No, sir.” Starbuck had spent the night in a boardinghouse in Canal Street and, in the morning, still seething with indignation, he had gone to the Spotswood House Hotel to confront Dominique and her lover, but instead a clerk had told him that Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Trabell had just left for the Richmond and Danville Railroad Depot. Starbuck had followed them, only to discover that the birds were flown and that their train was already steaming south out of the depot, its locomotive pumping a bitter smoke into the spring air that was so briskly filled with the news of Fort Sumter’s capitulation.

“Oh, it’s a rare tale, Nate! A rare tale!” Washington Faulconer laughed. “But you shouldn’t feel so bad. You ain’t the first young fellow to be fooled by a petticoat, and you won’t be the last, and I’ve no doubt Major Trabell’s a scoundrel as deep as they come.” He lit a cigar, then tossed the spent match into a spittoon. “So what are we going to do with you?” The lightness with which he asked the question seemed to imply that whatever answer Starbuck desired could be easily supplied. “Do you want to go back to Yale?”

“No, sir.” Starbuck spoke miserably.

“No?”

Starbuck spread his hands. “I’m not sure I should be at the seminary, sir. I’m not even sure I should have been there in the first place.” He stared down at his scarred, grazed knuckles, and bit his lip as he considered his answer. “I can’t become a minister now, sir, not now that I’m a thief.” And worse than a thief, Starbuck thought. He was remembering the fourth chapter of first Timothy where St. Paul had prophesied how in the latter times some men would depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils, and Starbuck knew he had fulfilled that prophecy, and the realization imbued his voice with a terrible anguish. “I’m simply not worthy of the ministry, sir.”