_Mait_. I might have thought so too, perchance; but that same day,--the
morning had brought the news from Boston,--I met her by chance, by the
spring in the little grove where we first met; and--Good Heavens! she
talked of brothers! Brothers, mother, sisters!--What was their right to
mine? All that the round world holds, or the universe, what could it be
to her?--that is, if she had loved me ever; which, past all doubt, she
never did.
_Andre_. Maitland! Heavens, how this passion blinds you! And you
expected a gentle, timid girl like that to abandon all she loved. Nay,
to make her home in the very camp, where death and ruin unto all she
loved, was the watchword?
_Mait_. I beg your pardon, Sir. I looked for no such thing. I offered to
renounce my hopes of honor here for her; a whole life's plans, for her
sake I counted nothing. I offered her a home in England too, the very
real of her girlhood's wish; my blighted fortunes since, or a home in
yonder camp,--never, never. But if I had, ay, if I had,--that is not
_love_, call it what you will, it is not love, to which such barriers
were any thing.
_Andre_.
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