“No; I heard him tell Captain Garden that he was still single.”

Fernando heaved another sigh and asked: 

“Did he say—­did he say anything about her?”

“Who?”

Fernando heaved another sigh and asked: 

“Did he say—­did he say anything about her?’7

“Who?”

The conversation was not interesting to Terrence and he had gone to another part of the camp, to engage in a game of cards with a sentry.

“Morgianna,” Fernando said.

“Morgianna? no—­she is the girl at Mariana, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t hear him mention her name.”

“They are not married yet?”

“No.”

“Perhaps I was mistaken after all,” said Fernando thoughtfully.  “May be she don’t care for him.”

Then Fernando sighed again and gazed into the smouldering fire.  After several minutes more, he said: 

“Sukey, she must be in love with him.”

“I thought so.”

Fernando sighed and remarked: 

“She may have married some one else, though.”

“No, she ain’t.”

“Have you heard of her?”

“I saw her!” Sukey declared.

“When?”

“When I was in Baltimore last winter.”

“Did you talk with her, Sukey?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know she was not married?”

“When I was in Baltimore last winter.”

“Did you talk with her, Sukey?”

“No.”

“Then how did you know she was not married?”

“I was in a store and overheard two women who knew her gossiping.  One asked the other if Morgianna Lane was married yet.  One said: 

“‘I thought she would marry the English lieutenant.’

“The other said: 

“‘No, not yet.  I suppose they are waiting till the war is over.’

“‘Has she no other lover?’ asked the other.  Then the other woman said she believed not, at least none ever came to see her.”

Fernando was quite sure she must have lovers by the score.  Such a glorious woman as Morgianna could not but have an abundance to choose from.

“You saw Morgianna, Sukey, how did she look?”

“Just as when we left.  Not a day older.”

“You knew her at sight?”

“Of course; but she didn’t know me.  I suspect I was a hard-looking case then; for I had just come from the ship and had on my English pea-jacket, and my linen was not the cleanest.”

Fernando sat silent for such a long time, that Sukey, who was tired, nodded awhile in silence, then, rolling up in his blanket, lay down under a tree and slept.  Fernando still sat gazing into the fire and saying to himself: 

“Oh, if it could have been, if it could have been!”

A young woman does a rash thing when she rejects such a warm, manly heart as that of Fernando Stevens.  Not all men are capable of such unselfish devotion as his, and Morgianna little dreamed how much she was casting aside.