"Yes, if you will be my friend, if you will help me." "I am your friend, and if there is help in man I will get it for you." "I want Harry's life; he risked it for me. If they kill him, all my days I shall see that sight and feel that horror. I shall go mad, or die." "Would you be content if I saved his life? He may be sent to prison." "There is hope in that. I could bear it better." "He will certainly be forbidden to come near New York, for----" "Only let him live." "He is without doubt a rebel." "So am I, from this day forth." "And a spy." "I wish I could be one. There is nothing I would not tell." He looked at her with the unreasoning adoration of a lover; then taking her cold hands between his own, he said in a slow, fervent voice: "If you will promise to marry me, I will save the young man's life." "You are taking advantage of my trouble." "I know I am. A man who loves as I do must make all events go to further his love." "But I love Harry Bradley." "You think so. If you had met him under ordinary circumstances you would not have looked twice at him. It was the romance, the secrecy, the danger, the stolen minutes--all that kind of thing. There is no root in such love." "I shall never cease to love Harry." "I will teach you to forget him." "No, no! How can you ask me in an hour like this? It is cruel." "Love is cruel. Sooner or later love wounds; for love is selfish. I want you for my wife, Maria. I put aside so," and he swept his hand outward, "everything that comes in the way." "You want to buy me! You say plainly, 'I will give you your lover's life for yourself.' I cannot listen to you!" "Be sensible, Maria. This infatuation for a rebel spy is infatuation. There is nothing real to it. If the war were over, and you saw young Bradley helping his father in his shop and going about in ordinary clothes about ordinary business, you would wonder what possessed you ever to have fancied yourself in love with him." "Oh, but you are mistaken!" "You would say to yourself, 'I wish I had listened to Ernest Medway. He would have taken me all over the happy, beautiful world, to every lovely land, to every splendid court. He would have surrounded me with a love that no trouble could put aside; he would have given me all that wealth can buy; he would have loved me more and more until the very last moment of my life, and followed me beyond life with longings that would soon have brought us together again.' Yes, Maria, that is how I love you." "Harry loves me." "Not he! If he had loved you he would not, for his own pleasure, have run any risk of giving you this trouble. What did I say? Love is selfish, love wounds----" "You wound me. You are selfish." "I am. I love you. You seemed to belong to me that first hour I saw you. I will not give you up." "If you really loved me, if you were really noble, you would save Harry without any conditions."