“No, no, my Maggie: I speak it not in praise of myself but in proof of my devotion, for how can a man show his love for a woman better than by forcing himself to live as he knows she would wish him to do?”
“And if you so loved this somebody of yours, why did you not write her?”
“You forget a soldier’s life is uncertain; I knew not the hour when I might fall. I said to myself a thousand times, if my life is spared I will seek her I love and plead my cause. When the bugle sounded the call to prepare for action I never failed to breathe an ardent prayer that Heaven’s blessing might rest upon you. I have been spared, the supreme hour in my life has come, and I await your answer.”
Maggie stood still. Her eyes fell to the ground and her fingers unconsciously plucked to pieces the flowers they held.
“Will you not speak?” pleaded Morton.
In a low voice she replied, “I cannot marry.”
“Why?”
“I will never leave my father.”
“I do not ask you should. I value his honest worth, and he shall be my father too, for I never saw my own, he died when I was a child. Say you will make me the happiest man on the Chateaugay and we will never part.”