“Ah, Dunwoodie! how happy, on many accounts, I am to see you! I have brought you in here, to prepare you to meet an unexpected friend in the opposite room.”
“To whatever cause it may be owing,” cried the youth, pressing her hands to his lips, “I, too, am happy in being able to see you alone. Frances, the probation you have decreed is cruel; war and distance may separate us forever.”
“We must submit to the necessity which governs us. But it is not love speeches I would hear now; I have other and more important matter for your attention.”
“What can be of more importance than to make you mine by a tie that will be indissoluble! Frances, you are cold to me—me—from whose mind, days of service and nights of alarm have never been able to banish your image for a single moment.”
“Dear Dunwoodie,” said Frances, softening nearly to tears, and again extending her hand to him, as the richness of her color gradually returned, “you know my sentiments—this war once ended, and you may take that hand forever—but I can never consent to tie myself to you by any closer union than already exists, so long as you are arrayed in arms against my only brother. Even now, that brother is awaiting your decision to restore him to liberty, or to conduct him to a probable death.”
“Your brother!” cried Dunwoodie, starting and turning pale; “your brother! explain yourself—what dreadful meaning is concealed in your words?”
“Has not Captain Lawton told you of the arrest of Henry by himself this very morning?” continued Frances, in a voice barely audible, and fixing on her lover a look of the deepest concern.
“He told me of arresting a captain of the 60th in disguise, but without mentioning where or whom,” replied the major in a similar tone; and dropping his head between his hands, he endeavored to conceal his feelings from his companion.
“Dunwoodie! Dunwoodie!” exclaimed Frances, losing all her former confidence in the most fearful apprehensions, “what means this agitation?” As the major slowly raised his face, in which was pictured the most expressive concern, she continued, “Surely, surely, you will not betray your friend—my brother—your brother—to an ignominious death.”
“Frances!” exclaimed the young man in agony, “what can I do?”