“Thanks, sweet love, for your boundless faith. But I am something higher and better than blameless, my Erminie, or I should not deserve your faith and love. I go out of this city in haste, in danger, and as a fugitive; but I return to it, Erminie, at the head of an army, with beating drums and waving banners!”
She gazed at him in amazement. His words were as unintelligible to her as if he had spoken in Sanscrit.
“Now do you understand?” he inquired, smiling.
Reassured by his manner, she also smiled, as she shook her head and replied:
“I understand that my betrothed husband is all that is good, noble, honorable; but I do not understand his words.”
“My beloved Erminie, listen: I am a Secessionist! One of the leaders in this second coming war of independence, which is to be more glorious than the first; one of the builders of this second young republic, whose splendor is destined to eclipse the first! And when I ask you to go away with me to-night, it is to share the fate of one who would lift you up beside him to, perhaps, the highest position in the gift of the young Confederacy!—Why, what is the matter with you, love?” he suddenly broke off and inquired, as she turned from him and dropped her head upon her bosom. “What is the matter with you, Erminie?”
“My heart is broken!” she murmured, in an almost dying voice.
“Nonsense, my darling girl! I know what your professed principles are. I often hear you express yourself strongly in favor of this absurd ‘Union.’ But I also know that, daughter-like, you take your opinions from your father, and, parrot-like, repeat the words he uses, without attaching much meaning to them. Henceforth, Erminie, you must take your opinions, not from your father, but from your husband. What do you say, my love?”
“I do not think that I took those opinions from my father. I do not remember the time when I did not know that treason——”
“Erminie!” he exclaimed, in a voice so stern as to make her start.