“You are wrong, Hugh,” said Lilian, “none of us hate or despise you, though the course you have taken has almost broken the hearts of those who loved you so dearly.”
“And who love me no longer, you would say. Well, I knew the penalty when I put on this uniform, and I am not going now to complain of the cost. I hate the Yankees,” he exclaimed with an energy of which he seemed incapable, “and the bitterest thought in dying is, that Elinor has become one of their miserable canting crew; but they have lost Stanwood; he at least is true to the bonny blue flag.”
“Not so, Hugh. Stanwood has seen his error, and taken the oath of allegiance at Washington, and only waits until his wounds are healed to go home and be reconciled to his family.”
The sick man turned ghastly pale on hearing this, and an execration rose to his lips, which was suppressed from deference to Lilian, who added,
“You are very ill, Hugh, and thoughts like these are not suited to one in your condition. Let me beg you to see the chaplain; he is a good man, and will gladly visit you.”
“Oh spare me all that stereotyped nonsense,” he exclaimed. “I will die as I have lived, without the aid of priest or chaplain. If my belief is correct, I do not need them; and if I am wrong, it is too late to mend the mistake. I am dying, and you know it; but I will at least die game: no whining repentance or hypocritical confessions for Hugh Carter.”
There seemed little hope of doing him any good in such a state of mind, and Lilian, feeling her own incompetency to reply to him, sadly turned away and left the room, while memory went back to other days, when he who was going into eternity without one ray of light upon his path, had been to her almost a brother. There was a shadow on her bright face as she went back to her patient, who instantly saw it, and inquired the cause, when she related the scene through which she had just passed. Capt. Lester had formerly known Lieut. Carter, and though no bond of affinity had ever drawn the young men together, he was greatly shocked to learn his present condition.
“I must see him, dear Lilian,” he said; “he may listen to me when he would not admit a clergyman. It is too dreadful to let him die so, without making one effort to do him good. Poor Elinor, how could she bear this?”
With great difficulty, and on crutches, Capt. Lester made his way to the bedside of the wounded officer; but the latter refused to converse with him, declaring that his mind was made up, and he would never be such a coward as to change his opinions because death was at hand. In vain he was urged to listen to God’s own words of promise.
“To those who can believe, all that is well enough; as for me, I have never feared any thing in life, and cannot begin to tremble now.”