The field doctor actually gave him up for lost, but he was carried back to the town of Ponce in an old volante found at a farmer's, relic of days long gone by, and not the most comfortable vehicle of transportation in the world for a pain-racked hero, but infinitely better than nothing.
Here, in the hospital they found that he had one chance in a dozen if carefully nursed, and behold, who should appear at the side of his cot but Cleo, the girl he had believed a thousand miles away on pleasure bent; yes Cleo, who, finding there was need of nurses to look after the sick and wounded heroes among the Regulars and Volunteers, "her own boys" as she called them, had quickly chosen to let the voyage wait and devote herself to the ministration of angelic duties.
How they worshiped her, those wounded and fever stricken fellows to whom her presence brought such comfort as she wrote letters, read cheering words and waited upon them.
Many a heart asked Heaven's choicest blessings to follow her.
And Cleo had her reward when she found Roderic on a cot of pain.
Hers was the blessed hand that sustained him, hers the cheery face that bending above gave him new desire to live.
Of course he survived, else had this over true tale never been written; but it was a hard struggle, and the good army surgeon solemnly assured Roderic he had positively been a dead man only for the unremitting and gentle care of his sweet nurse.
It was so ordered by Divine Providence.
Roderic found out the truth—found that he did really and sincerely love this brave girl from Virginia, not with the tempestuous affection such as he had felt for Georgia,—no woman on earth could ever again arouse such a passion within his heart, but with a steadfast zeal that must grow with the passage of time until it became the sum and total of his existence.