“No woman as dear, or dearer than a sister, to whom you would like to send some—some last word of love? oh, speak, if there be, and I will bear your message faithfully, sacredly, silently, until I meet with her for whom it is intended! Oh, think! oh, speak! is there none—none but your sister to whom you would send such a message?” pleaded Wing.
“There is none!” answered Justin, solemnly. “Beyond this field of blood, there is none but my sister to whom I care to send a message.”
Wing sat down and wept convulsively.
After a little while Justin put out his hand, and taking that of Wing pressed it, and drew it to his lips and kissed it, and said:
“Britomarte!”
With a violent start the hand was snatched away, but almost immediately it was returned and re-clasped.
“Britomarte—now in this supreme hour—now, with my life-blood oozing slowly but surely away—with my hours nay, my very minutes numbered—may I venture to recognize you and call you by your name?—may I venture to confess that I recognized you from the beginning?” he pleaded, still holding and caressing her hand.
“Justin! Justin, my beloved! my beloved!” exclaimed Britomarte, whom we shall no longer call by her assumed name of Wing. And she dropped her head upon his bosom and sobbed aloud. He folded his arms around her, and she sobbed until her passion of grief had exhausted itself. Then she raised her head and wiped her eyes.
“I am dying, Britomarte! that is nothing; a soldier’s fate—no more. But stoop, my darling, and put your lips to mine, and give me the kiss—the kiss that my heart has hungered for through all these weary years!” he pleaded.
She stooped and pressed her lips to his in long, clinging, passionate kisses, murmuring between them: