“See,” said Sarah, “but will it not wash away love? Marry, young woman, and then no one can expel him from your heart, unless,”—she added, whispering, and bending over the other,—“you find another there before you; then die, and go to heaven—there are no wives in heaven.”
The lovely maniac hid her face under the clothes, and continued silent during the remainder of the night. At this moment Lawton entered. Inured as he was to danger in all its forms, and accustomed to the horrors of a partisan war, the trooper could not behold the ruin before him unmoved. He bent over the fragile form of Isabella, and his gloomy eye betrayed the workings of his soul.
“Isabella,” he at length uttered, “I know you to possess a courage beyond the strength of women.”
“Speak,” she said, earnestly; “if you have anything to say, speak fearlessly.”
The trooper averted his face as he replied, “None ever receive a ball there, and survive.”
“I have no dread of death, Lawton,” returned Isabella. “I thank you for not doubting me; I felt it from the first.”
“These are not scenes for a form like yours,” added the trooper. “’Tis enough that Britain calls our youth to the field; but when such loveliness becomes the victim of war, I sicken of my trade.”
“Hear me, Captain Lawton,” said Isabella, raising herself with difficulty, but rejecting aid. “From early womanhood to the present hour have I been an inmate of camps and garrisons. I have lived to cheer the leisure of an aged father, and think you I would change those days of danger and privation for any ease? No! I have the consolation of knowing, in my dying moments, that what woman could do in such a cause, I have done.”
“Who could prove a recreant, and witness such a spirit! Hundreds of warriors have I witnessed in their blood, but never a firmer soul among them all.”
“’Tis the soul only,” said Isabella. “My sex and strength have denied me the dearest of privileges. But to you, Captain Lawton, nature has been more bountiful; you have an arm and a heart to devote to the cause; and I know they are in arm and a heart that will prove true to the last. And George—and—” she paused, her lip quivered, and her eye sank to the floor.