“Get up,” at last said Georgia, half-shaking, half-putting the girl upon her feet. “Get up and come with me.”
And she drew her to a fragment of rock, at a safer distance, pushed her down on the seat, and dropped herself by her side.
“Now, tell me of this,” she commanded, in a hard, curt tone. “You were married?”
“Yes, yes!”
“Who was your husband?”
“Ah, you know! You must know! He who died in yonder field of blood, under the tomahawk of the Shoshonowa—I am very wretched!”
“Stay!—is this true—about the marriage, I mean?”
“True as God’s Word!”
“Certainly the marriage was not legal without your father’s consent, and would have been annulled by him. But now he will permit his consent to be supposed. Let’s see! the widow of an army officer entitled to his half-pay, perhaps; I do not know—perhaps to a pension, too, as he died in the field of battle. Zuleime, upon the whole, I think that you were rash to attempt suicide. Your position and prospects are not so bad. If Major Cabell is anxious to possess you, now that he supposes you to be a maudlin, love-sick girl, grieving yourself to death over the grave of your lover, he will be quite as willing to marry you a year hence, when he knows you to be the widow of Captain Fairfax—for that, I understand, was his rank when he fell. Come, girl, live! Acknowledge your marriage, like a truthful woman! Bring your child into God’s world like a Christian woman! And after a sufficient time has elapsed, marry Major Cabell, like a sensible woman! For I do assure you, that the gallant Major is sufficiently enamored of your young beauty to wait that length of time, if compelled to do so.”
“Ah, yes! I think he is enamored of me as the Shoshonowa was of poor Frank’s hair!” bitterly said the girl.