“Be happy while you can,” he said, with bitter emphasis.  “We live in troubled times, and heaven knows when we shall see better.  Maud has not a blood-relation in all America, unless there may happen to be some in the British army.  Though we should all be happy to protect and cherish the dear girl, she herself would probably, prefer to be near those whom nature has appointed her friends.  To me, she will always seem a sister, as you must ever be a brother.  By uniting yourselves at once, all appearances of impropriety will be avoided; and in time, God averting evil, you can introduce your wife to her English connections.”

“You forget, Beekman, that you are giving this advice to one who is a prisoner on parole, and one who may possibly be treated as a spy.”

“No—­that is impossible.  Schuyler, our noble commander, is both just and a gentleman.  He will tolerate nothing of the sort.  Your exchange can easily be effected, and, beyond your present difficulties, I can pledge myself to be able to protect you.”

Willoughby was not averse to following this advice; and he urged it upon Maud, as the safest and most prudent course they could pursue.  Our heroine, however, was so reluctant even to assuming the appearance of happiness, so recently after the losses she had experienced, that the lover’s task of persuasion was by no means easy.  Maud was totally free from affectation, while she possessed the keenest sense of womanly propriety.  Her intercourse with Robert Willoughby had been of the tenderest and most confidential nature, above every pretence of concealment, and was rendered sacred by the scenes through which they had passed.  Her love, her passionate, engrossing attachment, she did not scruple to avow; but she could not become a bride while the stains of blood seemed so recent on the very hearth around which they were sitting.  She still saw the forms of the dead, in their customary places, heard their laughs, the tones of their affectionate voices, the maternal whisper, the playful, paternal reproof, or Beulah’s gentle call.

“Yet, Robert,” said Maud, for she could now call him by that name, and drop the desperate familiarity of ’Bob,’—­“yet, Robert, there would be a melancholy satisfaction in making our vows at the altar of the little chapel, where we have so often worshipped together—­the loved ones who are gone and we who alone remain.”

“True, dearest Maud; and there is another reason why we should quit this place only as man and wife.  Beekman has owned that a question will probably be raised among the authorities at Albany concerning the nature of my visit here.  It might relieve him from an appeal to more influence than would be altogether pleasant, did I appear as a bridegroom rather than as a spy.”

The word “spy” settled the matter.  All ordinary considerations were lost sight of, under the apprehensions it created, and Maud frankly consented to become a wife that very day.  The ceremony was performed by Mr. Woods accordingly, and the little chapel witnessed tears of bitter recollections mingling with the smiles with which the bride received the warm embrace of her husband, after the benediction was pronounced.  Still, all felt that, under the circumstances, delay would have been unwise.  Maud saw a species of holy solemnity in a ceremony so closely connected with scenes so sad.