Just then the ambulance brought in a wounded scout, and Iola found relief from the wounds of her own heart in attending to his.

Dr. Gresham knew the barrier that lay between them.  It was one which his love had surmounted.  But he was too noble and generous to take advantage of her loneliness to press his suit.  He had lived in a part of the country where he had scarcely ever seen a colored person, and around the race their misfortunes had thrown a halo of romance.  To him the negro was a picturesque being, over whose woes he had wept when a child, and whose wrongs he was ready to redress when a man.  But when he saw the lovely girl who had been rescued by the commander of the post from the clutches of slavery, all the manhood and chivalry in his nature arose in her behalf, and he was ready to lay on the altar of her heart his first grand and overmastering love.  Not discouraged by her refusal, but determined to overcome her objections, Dr. Gresham resolved that he would abide his time.

Iola was not indifferent to Dr. Gresham.  She admired his manliness and respected his character.  He was tall and handsome, a fine specimen of the best brain and heart of New England.  He had been nurtured under grand and ennobling influences.  His father was a devoted Abolitionist.  His mother was kind-hearted, but somewhat exclusive and aristocratic.  She would have looked upon his marriage with Iola as a mistake and feared that such an alliance would hurt the prospects of her daughters.

During Iola’s stay in the North, she had learned enough of the racial feeling to influence her decision in reference to Dr. Gresham’s offer.  Iola, like other girls, had had her beautiful day-dreams before she was rudely awakened by the fate which had dragged her into the depths of slavery.  In the chambers of her imagery were pictures of noble deeds; of high, heroic men, knightly, tender, true, and brave.  In Dr. Gresham she saw the ideal of her soul exemplified.  But in her lonely condition, with all its background of terrible sorrow and deep abasement, she had never for a moment thought of giving or receiving love from one of that race who had been so lately associated in her mind with horror, aversion, and disgust.  His kindness to her had been a new experience.  His companionship was an unexpected pleasure.  She had learned to enjoy his presence and to miss him when absent, and when she began to question her heart she found that unconsciously it was entwining around him.

“Yes,” she said to herself, “I do like him; but I can never marry him.  To the man I marry my heart must be as open as the flowers to the sun.  I could not accept his hand and hide from him the secret of my birth; and I could not consent to choose the happiest lot on earth without first finding my poor heart-stricken and desolate mother.  Perhaps some day I may have the courage to tell him my sad story, and then make my heart the sepulchre in which to bury all the love which might have gladdened and brightened my whole life.”