“No,” he replied, springing to his feet, “I shall think of you as the woman I love.  Life shall not end so unhappily for us both; for if you persist in your morbid enmity, my future will be as wretched as yours.  You judge me unheard, and you wrong me cruelly.  I have never forgotten you for an hour.  I wrote to you again and again, and received no answer.  The moment I was released from the iron rule of military duty in the West I sought you before returning to the mother who bore me.  No river of blood flows between us that my love could not bridge.  I admit that I was speechless at first before the magnitude of your sorrows; but must this accursed war go on forever, blighting life and hope?  What was the wound you did so much towards healing compared to the one you are giving me now?  Many a blow has been aimed at me, but not one has pierced my heart before.”

She tried to listen rigidly and coldly to his impassioned utterance, but could not, and, as he ceased, she was sobbing in her chair.  He sought with gentle words to soothe her, but by a gesture she silenced him.

At last she said, brokenly:  “For months I have not shed a tear.  My heart and brain seemed bursting, yet I could get no relief.  Were it not for some faith and hope in God, I should have followed my kindred.  You cannot know, you never can know.”

“I know one thing, Suwanee.  You were once a brave, unselfish woman.  I will not, I cannot believe that you have parted with your noble, generous impulses.  You may remain cold to me if I merely plead my cause for your sake, that I may bring consolation and healing into your life; but I still have too much faith in your large, warm, Southern heart to believe that you will blight my life also.  If you can never love me, give me the right to be your loyal and helpful friend.  Giving you all that is best and most sacred in my nature how can you send me away as if I had no part or lot in your life?  It is not, cannot be true.  When I honor you and would give my life for you, and shall love you all my days, it is absurd to say that I am nothing to you.  Only embodied selfishness and callousness could say that.  You may not be able to give what I do, but you should give all you can.  ‘Rivers of blood flowing between us’ is morbid nonsense.  Forgive me that I speak strongly,—­I feel strongly.  My soul is in my words.  I felt towards my cause as you towards yours, and had I not acted as I have, you would be the first to think me a craven.  But what has all this to do with the sacred instinct, the pure, unbounded love which compels me to seek you as my wife?”

“You have spoken such words to another,” she said, in a low tone.

“No, never such words as I speak to you.  I could not have spoken them, for then I was too young and immature to feel them.  I did love Miss Vosburgh as sincerely as I now respect and esteem her.  She is the happy wife of another man.  I speak to you from the depths of my matured manhood.  What is more I speak with the solemnity and truth which your sorrows should inspire.  Should you refuse my hand it will never be offered to another, and you know me well enough to be sure I will keep my word.”