“But even here I was balked in my aspirations, the journalistic field being so fully covered that no opening was left for me, dooming me to inaction, while my whole soul burned with fiery ardor in Cuba’s cause.
“At this juncture Rolfe Maxwell came to my aid with a startling proposition that we should change names, he resigning to me his journalistic position and enlisting in the army, for which his education at West Point, his sympathy with the Cubans, and his reckless state of mind equally fitted him. Indeed, he confessed to me that his preference was the army, and that he should have entered it on first coming to Cuba but for the thought of his widowed mother, who would have grieved unceasingly.
“‘I will own to you, my friend, that I have a secret, intolerable sorrow that goads me to despair,’ he said to me, with a sadness that made my heart ache in sympathy. ‘I wedded the most lovely and charming girl on earth, only to find that she came to regret the bonds that fettered us, and to wish herself free. I swear to you that the dearest wish of my heart is to end my hopeless pain by a brave and honorable death on the field of battle.’”
Viola, unable to control her emotion, burst into a fit of passionate sobbing, crying:
“Oh, there was a terrible mistake that wrecked both our lives, and he went away too soon in his rash pride to find out the real truth that I loved him with the same tenderness he bore to me. But now, alas! ’tis too late! He will never know how well I loved him! You are going to tell me he is dead!”
“My story is almost ended,” he answered, evasively, as she stifled her bursting sobs, permitting him to proceed:
“Our arrangements for the harmless fraud we proposed were easily made, and I will not enter into them, thus protracting your suspense. Suffice it to say that I can not understand why you did not learn that he still lived after his reported shooting, as it was planned he should still write his mother under his own name. Perhaps his letters went astray, and were not received. Anyway, he went into the army and distinguished himself under my name, while I, within two weeks, and just as I was earning welcome laurels as a correspondent, was arrested and thrown into prison under his pseudonym. There I remained until this week, denied all communication with the world outside my dungeon door, expecting to be shot any time at day-break, with the hundreds whose death-knells each morning echoed dismally across the water, announcing the dawn of a new day, and feeling myself already as dead as if the grave had closed over me. That is all, except that on my release from prison I learned that Rolfe Maxwell, under my name of Arthur Linwood, had earned the rank of captain in the Cuban army, and covered himself with glory.”
“Linwood—Captain Linwood!” almost shrieked Viola, who had read so often of the brave young American whose deeds of daring on many a hard-fought field had won the plaudits of the admiring world.
“Yes, Captain Linwood,” repeated Arthur Linwood; adding: “The Cubans fairly worship this gallant hero, who has risked his life so often to serve their cause, and I am told that America also is proud of her gallant son. When I go home tomorrow his countrymen shall hear through their favorite newspaper the whole story of his identity and of my release. It is a story that will thrill their hearts with pride and sorrow.”
“Sorrow?” echoed Viola, with a convulsive start; and he answered, reluctantly: