"Oh, if you would only make me the happiest of men!"
"Don't, Major Strause," she answered. "How can you talk of these things now?"
"I only want your promise," he pleaded. "Oh, won't you promise me? I was a man almost lost, but you are saving me."
She tore her hand away, and went off to see to another patient. But now began a series of persecutions which tested the brave girl's courage to the very utmost. Major Strause seemed determined to carry on the siege by incessant small firing. He hardly ever let Mollie alone. He was always calling her on one pretence or another, and whenever she approached his side he told her how ardently he loved her, and what a good man she would make him if she fielded to his solicitations. Mollie, however, was firm. All this time he had never once alluded to her sister, nor to Captain Keith, nor to anything but the all-important fact that he loved Mollie, that he loved her with a true and constant heart, and that he wanted her to return his love.
One day when he had spoken in this tone she suddenly burst into tears. He was instantly full of contrition.
"What is the matter?" he said. "You cry! you, the brave, the constant, the indefatigable, give way!"
"You are making me cry; you are wearing me out," said the girl. "I can stand everything else—yes, everything else—but it lowers me when you talk to me as you do."
He looked at her with a world of consternation and self-reproach in his eyes.
"Is that true?" he said.
"Yes," she answered, sinking her voice to a whisper. A soldier in a bed opposite was looking at her; she observed that he did so, and turned her back on him. He turned away also, with the chivalry which belongs to most brave soldiers. "You make me a spectacle before the others," she continued. "Why do you make my life so wretched? Can't you be generous? Can't you see that you are showing the reverse of love when you act as you do?"