"You see the ice is breaking!" said the colonel, in a jesting tone, when the door had closed behind the young officer. "The parting appears to make Gerald realize what he possesses in his little fiancée. Do you still think he is incapable of loving?"
Edith slowly turned her face toward her father; it was startlingly pale, and the blue eyes were filled with scalding tears.
"Oh! yes, Gerald can love!" she said, with quivering lips. "I have learned that to-day--but he has never loved me!"
IV.
On a desolate, rocky mountain plateau, a most lonely and secluded location, was a fort, which, built many years before, had recently been greatly strengthened, and was now the centre of the military operations for the suppression of the rebellion.
Months had passed since the first outbreak, and the insurrection was not yet wholly subdued, though every indication betokened a speedy conquest. During this time the troops had endured all sorts of dangers and hardships, a series of fierce battles had been waged, and here they were compelled to fight, not only men, but the country, the climate, the immobility and barrenness of this mountainous region, which proved themselves foes to the strangers, while they became so many allies to the natives of the land. Yet the greater part of the toilsome task was already accomplished and the fate of the insurrection decided.
The tribe of which Joan Obrevic had been chief was the only one that still opposed to the soldiery a tenacious and energetic resistance. Its members had joined the rebellion immediately after the death of their leader and the return of his son, and now this son occupied his father's place and carried on a fierce, desperate warfare, in which all the cruelty of his race was displayed. With proud defiance he rejected every overture relating to surrender or treaty, and woe betide all the wounded and prisoners who fell into his hands!
A number of wounded soldiers, whose condition did not permit them to be transported farther, had been brought to the fort, and Father Leonhard had come there to render them spiritual consolation and assistance. The sun shone hotly down upon the stone walls of the little fortress, but within their shelter it was comparatively cool. The priest was sitting in the tiny room assigned to him, and before him stood George Moosbach, covered with dust, flushed with heat, and bearing every token of a fatiguing march.
"Here we are, your reverence," he said. "At least, here I am for the present, half dead with thirst, three quarters worn out by fatigue, and entirely roasted by the heat of the sun. Well, when a fellow has the same sport every day he gets used to it in time."
"Yet you don't seem much the worse for your exertions," replied the priest, glancing at the young soldier's face--it was a little more sunburnt, it is true, but the black eyes sparkled as boldly and blithely as ever.