"To marry you?" exclaimed Ernest.
"Ay—to marry me!" said the lady. "Am I deformed—am I ugly—am I poor?"
"I cannot do it—you know not the reason that induces me to refuse."
"Then go home to your father and confess your guilt."
Ernest reflected a few moments. He could not go home to his father with the frightful tale. It was a question between suicide and marriage—he signed the paper.
"Now then, baron," said the widow to herself, as she carefully secured the promise, "you cannot say that you broke the heart of Anna by your cruelty. Take the money, Ernest," she added aloud; "go and purchase your commission."
Ernest obeyed. His dreams of yesterday morning had all been dissipated by his own act; he felt a degraded and broken-spirited criminal. He had sold himself for gold.
CHAPTER II.
"Here comes Captain Ernest!" cried a youthful voice. And a beautiful, blue-eyed girl of nineteen stood at the garden gate of a pretty farm house, watching the approach of a horseman, who, gayly attired in a hussar uniform, was galloping up the road. At her shout of delight, a sturdy old gray-haired man came forth and stood beside her.
"Captain Ernest!" he repeated. "That sounds well. When I was of his age, I only carried a musket in the ranks. I never dreamed then that a son of mine could ever aspire to the epaulet."