"Lieutenant Leigh, you are speaking madly. How can you be so unjust?" she cried, holding tightly by his arm, for he was turning away, while I felt mad with him for torturing the poor girl, when it was decided that the attempt was to be made. "I am not unjust," he said. "The hazard is too great; and what should I gain if I succeeded? Pshaw! Why, if he were saved, it would be at the expense of my own life." "I would die to save him!" she said hoarsely. "I know it, Elsie; but you would not give a loving word to save me. You would send me out to my death without compunction--without a care; and yet you know how I have loved you." "You--you loved me; and yet stand and see my heart torn--see me suffer like this?" cried Miss Ross, and there was something half-wild in her looks as she spoke. "Love you!" he cried; "yes, you know how I have loved you--" His voice sank here; but he was talking in her ear excitedly, saying words that made her shrink from him up to the wall, and look at him as if he were some object of the greatest disgust. "You can choose," he said bitterly, as he saw her action; and he turned away from her. The next moment she was bending down before him, holding up her hands as if in prayer. "Promise me," he said, "and I will do it." "Oh, some other way--some other way!" she cried piteously, her face all drawn the while. "As you will," he said coldly. "But think--oh, think! You cannot expect it of me. Have mercy! Oh, what am I saying?" "Saying!" he cried, catching her hands in his, and speaking excitedly and fast--"saying things that are sending him to his death! What do I offer you? Love, devotion, all that man can give. He would, if asked now, give up all for his life; and yet you, who profess to love him so dearly, refuse to make that sacrifice for his sake! You cannot love him. If he could hear now, he would implore you to do it. Think. I risk all. Most likely, my life will be given for his; perhaps we shall both fall. But you refuse. Enough: I must go; I cannot stay. There are many lives here under my charge; they must not be neglected for the sake of one. As I said before, it is the fortune of war; and, poor fellow, he has but a quarter of an hour or so to live, unless help comes." "Unless help comes," groaned Miss Ross frantically, when, as Lieutenant Leigh reached the door, watching me over his shoulder the while, Miss Ross went down on her knees, stretched out her hands towards where Captain Dyer was bound to the gun, and then she rose, cold, and hard, and stern, and turned to Lieutenant Leigh, holding out her hand. "I promise," she said hoarsely. "On your oath, before God?" he exclaimed joyfully, as he caught her in his arms. "As God is my judge," she faltered with her eyes upturned; and then, as he held her to his breast, kissing her passionately, she shivered and shuddered, and, as he released her, sank in a heap on the floor.