“Stay, stay!” said I. “You shall escape; my life is in no danger. I have, as you see, even friends among the staff. Besides, I have done nothing to compromise or endanger my position.”
“No, sir,” said he, sternly, “I will not act such a part as this. The tears you have seen in these old eyes are not for myself. I fear not death. Better it were it should have come upon the field of glorious battle; but as it is, my soldier’s honor is intact, untainted.”
“You refuse the service on account of him who proffers it,” said I, as I fell heavily upon a seat, my head bowed upon my bosom.
“Not so, not so, my boy,” replied he, kindly. “The near approach of death, like the fading light of day, gives us a longer and a clearer view before us. I feel that I have wronged you; that I have imputed to you the errors of others; but, believe me, if I have wronged you, I have punished my own heart; for, Charles, I have loved you like a son.”
“Then prove it,” said I, “and let me act towards you as towards a father. You will not? You refuse me still? Then, by Heaven, I remain to share your fate! I well know the temper of him who has sentenced you, and that, by one word of mine, my destiny is sealed forever.”
“No, no, boy! This is but rash and insane folly. Another year or two, nay, perhaps a few months more, and in the common course of Nature I had ceased to be; but you, with youth, with fortune, and with hope—”
“Oh, not with hope!” said I, in a voice of agony.
“Nay, say not so,” replied he, calmly, while a sickly smile played sadly over his face; “you will give this letter to my daughter, you will tell her that we parted as friends should part; and if after that, when time shall have smoothed down her grief, and her sorrow be rather a dark dream of the past than a present suffering,—if then you love her, and if—”
“Oh, tempt me not thus!” said I, as the warm tears gushed from my eyes. “Lead me not thus astray from what my honor tells me I should do. Hark! They are coming already. I hear the clank of their sabres; they are mounting the steps; not a moment is to be lost! Do you refuse me still?”
“I do,” replied he, firmly; “I am resolved to bide my fate.”