"Lady, you are severe."
"I speak but truth, Captain Bezan, and your own good sense will sustain it."
"I forgot your birth and rank, your wealth-everything. I acknowledge this, in the love I bore you; and, lady, I still feel, that had not my career been thus summarily checked, I might yet have won your love. Nay, lady, do not frown; true love never despairs-never is disheartened—never relinquishes the object that it loves, while there is one ray of light yet left to guide it on. It did seem to me now, when we are parting so surely forever, that it might have been, on your part, more kindly, and that you would, by a smile, or even a tear-drop, for my sake, have thus blessed me, and lightened my heavy steps to the field of execution and of trial."
Isabella Gonzales, as she listened to his words, could no longer suppress her feelings, but covering her face with her hands, she wept for a moment like a child. Pride was of no avail; the heart had asserted its supremacy, and would not be controlled.
"You take advantage of my woman's heart, sir," she said, at last. "I cannot bear the idea that any one should suffer, and more particularly one who has endeared himself to me and mine by such important service as you have done. Do not think that tears argue aught for the wild tale you have uttered, sir. I would not have you deceive yourself so much; but I am a woman, and cannot view violence or grief unmoved!"
"Say, rather, lady," added the soldier, most earnestly, "that you are pure, beautiful, and good at heart, but that pride, that only alloy of thy most lovely character, chokes its growth in your bosom."
"Sir!"
"Well, Senorita Isabella."
"Enough of this," she said, hastily and much excited. "I must leave you now, captain. It is neither fitting that I should hear, nor that you should utter such words as these to Isabella Gonzales. Farewell!"
"Lady, farewell," replied the prisoner, more by instinct than by any comprehension that she was actually about to leave him.