“Yet how brief must be my stay. The avenger is behind me, and I must soon resume my lonely wandering.”
“And will you again leave me?” asked Virginia, in a reproachful tone.
“Leave you, dearest, oh, how sweet would be my fate, after all my cares and sufferings, if I could but die here. But this must not be. Though I trust I know how to meet death as a brave man, yet it is my duty, as a good man, to leave no honourable means untried to save my life.”
“But your danger cannot be so great, dearest,” said Virginia, tenderly. “Surely my father—”
“Would feel it his duty,” said Hansford, interrupting her, “to deliver me up to justice; and feeling it to be such, he would have the moral firmness to discharge it. Poor old gentleman! like many of his party, his prejudice perverts his true and generous heart. My poor country must suffer long before she can overcome the opposition of bigoted loyalty. Forgive me for speaking thus of your noble father, Virginia—but prejudices like these are the thorns which spring up in his heart and choke the true word of freedom, and render it unfruitful. Is it not so, dearest?”
“You mistake his generous nature,” said Virginia, earnestly. “You mistake his love for me. You mistake his sound judgment. You mistake his high sense of honour. Think you that he sees no difference between the man who, impelled by principle, asserts what he believes to be a right, and him, who for his own selfish ends and personal advancement, would sacrifice his country. Yes, my dear friend, you mistake my father. He will gladly interpose with the Governor and restore you to happiness, to freedom, and to—”
She paused, unable to proceed for the sobs that choked her utterance, and then gave vent to a flood of passionate grief.
“You would add, 'and to thee,'” said Hansford, finishing the sentence. “God knows, my girl, that such a hope would make me dare more peril than I have yet encountered. But, alas! if it were even as you say, what weight would his remonstrance have with that imperious old tyrant, Berkeley? It would be but the thistle-down against the cannon ball in the scales of his justice.”
“He dare not refuse my father's demands,” said Virginia. “One who has been so devoted to his cause, who has sacrificed so much for his king, and who has afforded shelter and protection to the Governor himself in the hour of his peril and need, is surely entitled to this poor favour at his hands. He dare not refuse to grant it.”
“Alas! Virginia, you little know the character of Sir William Berkeley, when you say he dares not. But the very qualities which you claim, and justly claim, for your father, would prevent him from exerting that influence with the Governor which your hopes whisper would be so successful—'His noble nature' would prompt him at any sacrifice to yield personal feeling to a sense of public duty. 'His love for you' would prompt him to rescue you from the rebel who dared aspire to your hand. 'His sound judgment' would dictate the maxim, that it were well for one man to die for the people; and his 'high sense of honour' would prevent him from interposing between a condemned traitor and his deserved doom. Be assured, Virginia, that thus would your father reason; and with his views of loyalty and justice, I could not blame him for the conclusion to which he came.”