“I am not in the least afraid,” she said, smiling toward General Jackson, who, fatigued, was stretched out on a sofa before a small fire, while a number of young people listened to his talk.
Trevellian shook his head. “It is a terribly serious thing. Half our troops are still in the woods marching here. The Kentuckians have not yet arrived. We have only 2,000 troops of all kinds yet in the city, and Lafitte places the English he met on the sea at 10,000 alone, to say nothing of their sailors and marines and ships of war. But the General,” he went on proudly, “I believe he thinks he could whip them himself, and he would try it. I do not say this to frighten you, but I wish you to be prepared. If the British were to land before our other troops come, God only knows how we could stop them. I think we should all have to die here.”
She looked up at him quickly and in that look he saw all the sorrow of love in her eyes.
“I, myself,” he said, “do not expect to live through this fight. I do not want to, and that is why I have come to speak to you for the last time.”
He saw her frame quiver and tears spring to her eyes, but he went on:
“I shall leave with General Jackson a letter my father wrote to me before he died, and which I found among his papers a few days after I first met you. After this fight is over I want him to deliver it into your hands—then you may think differently,” he added, “and I should not want you to think evil of me after I am dead.”
“Tell me now,” she said, and turning she came up and stood looking into his face, her eyes moist and yet afire with love and hope. “Tell me now. I do so wish to hear you say.”
He could not restrain himself. He stooped and laid his lips on hers.
“It is my first—my last,” he said, and though she clung to his neck for one brief moment and he heard her sob, he shook her quietly off, and answered the call to horse that was sounded in the yard where his commander and his aides had mounted and were ready to go.
“Goodbye, my darling,” he whispered. “I shall go on, knowing I have your love and if I fall know that you were mine—forever.”