Isabella Gonzales had now thrown back the ample folds of the cloak she wore, and lifting her brother's cap from her head, her beautiful hair fell into its accustomed place, and with a slight blush tinging either cheek, she stood before the young soldier in his cell, an object of ineffable interest and beauty.
"Heaven bless you, lady," said the prisoner, kneeling at her feet.
"Nay. I pray you, sir, Captain Bezan, do not kneel at such a time."
"Ah! lady, how can I thank you in feeble words for this sweet ray of sunshine that you have cast athwart my dark and dreary path? I no longer remember that I am to die-that my former comrades are to pierce my heart with bullets. I cannot remember my fate, lady, since you have rendered me so happy. You have shown me that I did not mistake the throne at which I have secretly worshipped-that, all good and pure as you are, you would not forget Lorenzo Bezan, the poor, the lonely soldier who had dared to tell you how dearly he loved you."
As he spoke, Isabella Gonzales seemed for one moment to forget herself in the realizations of the scene. She listened to his thrice eloquent words with eyes bent upon the ground at first, and then gazing tenderly upon him, and now that he had ceased to speak, they sought once more the floor of the room in silence. He could not but construe these delicate demonstrations in his favor, and drawing close to her side, he pressed her hand tenderly to his lips. The touch seemed to act like magic, and aroused her to present consciousness, while she started as if in amazement. All the pride of her disposition was instantly aroused; she felt that for a single moment she had forgotten herself, and to retrieve the apparent acquiescence that she had seemed to show to the condemned soldier's words and tale of love, she now appeared to think that she must assume all the hauteur of character that usually governed her in her intercourse with his sex and the world generally. It was but a simple struggle, and all her self-possession was rallied again to her service and absolute control.
"Captain Bezan," she said, with assumed dignity, and drawing herself up in all her beauty of to person to its full height, "I came not hither to hear such talk as this from you, nor to submit to such familiarity, and I trust, sir, that you will henceforth remember your station, and respect mine."
The breast of the prisoner heaved with inward emotion, in the struggle to suppress its outward show, and he bit his lips until the blood nearly flowed. His face instantly became the picture of despair; for her words had planted that grief and sorrow in his heart which the fear of death could not arouse there. Even Isabella Gonzales seemed for a moment struck with the effect of her repulse; but her own proud heart would not permit her to recall one word she had uttered.
"I would not leave you, Captain Bezan," said she, at length, as she gathered the ample folds of the cloak about her, "without once more tendering to you my most earnest thanks for your great services to our family. You know to what I refer. I need not tell you," she continued, with a quivering lip, "that my father has done all in his power to have your sentence remitted, but, alas! to no effect. Tacon seems to be resolved, and unchangeable."
As she spoke thus, spite of all her assumed pride and self-control, a tear trembled in her eye, and her respiration came quickly-almost in sobs!
The young soldier looked at her silently for a moment; at first he seemed puzzled; he was weighing in his own mind the meaning of all this as contrasted with the repulse he had just received, and with the estimate he had before formed of her; at last, seeming to read the spirit that had possessed her, he said: