He was soon informed that the vessel which was to take him to Spain would sail on the following morning, and that no further time would be permitted to him on the island.  He resolved to write one last letter of farewell to Isabella Gonzales, and then to depart; and calling upon the turnkey for writing materials, which were now supplied to him, he wrote as follows”

“Dear lady:  Strange circumstances, with which you are doubtless well acquainted by this time, have changed my punishment from death to banishment.  Under ordinary circumstances it would hardly be called banishment for any person to be sent from a foreign clime to the place of his nativity; nor would it appear to be such to me, were it not that I leave behind me the only being I have ever really loved-the idol angel of my heart-she who has been to me life, soul, everything, until now, when I am wretched beyond description; because without hope, all things would be as darkness to the human heart.

“I need not review our brief acquaintanceship, or reiterate to you the feelings I have already expressed.  If you can judge between true love and gallantry, you know whether I am sincere or otherwise.  I could not offer you wealth, Isabella Gonzales.  I could not offer you rank.  I have no fame to share with you; but O, if it be the will of Heaven that another should call you wife, I pray that he may love you as I have done.  I am not so selfish but that I can utter this prayer with all my heart, and in the utmost sincerity.

“The object of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you farewell; for it is sweet to me even to address you.  May God bless your dear brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I have been with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the especial blessing of Heaven rest ever on and around you.

“This will ever be the nightly prayer of Lorenzo Bezan.”

When Isabella Gonzales received this note on the following day, its author was nearly a dozen leagues at sea, bound for the port of Cadiz, Spain!  She hastily perused its contents again and again. looked off upon the open sea, as though she might be able to recall him, threw herself upon her couch, and wept bitter, scalding tears, until weary nature caused her to sleep.

At last Ruez stole into her room quietly, and finding her asleep, and a tear-drop glistening still upon her cheek, he kissed away the pearly dew and awoke her once more to consciousness.  He, too, had learned of Captain Bezan’s sudden departure; and by the open letter in his sister’s hand, to which he saw appended his dearly loved friend’s name, he judged that her weeping had been caused by the knowledge that he had left them-probably forever.

Lorenzo Bezan should have seen her then, in her almost transcendent beauty, too proud, far too proud, to own even to herself that she loved the poor soldier; yet her heart would thus unbidden and spontaneously betray itself, in spite of all her proud calmness, and strong efforts at self-control.  The boy looked at her earnestly; twice he essayed to speak, and then, as if some after thought had changed his purpose, he kissed her again, and was silent.