“Oh, pardon me,” she said. “I did not mean to speak so rudely. And I did not wish to offend you. And oh! perhaps I misunderstood you. Heaven grant that I may have done so. Oh, indeed, I must have done so! I am so stupid and bewildered. You are true to your country, are you not? Oh, tell me that you are, and I will ask your pardon on my knees for my momentary doubt of you!” she pleaded, clasping her hands, and gazing at him with imploring eyes. “Yes, Erminie, I am true to my country; but not in the sense, I fear, you mean. I am true to my country. I am pledged for the support of the Southern Confederacy, which is the only country I acknowledge!” “Then, oh, my heart! all is over between us!” she cried, sinking down at his feet, utterly overwhelmed by this blow he had dealt her. He stooped and raised her tenderly, and drew her to his bosom, murmuring: “Erminie, my love, my love!” She turned suddenly and threw her arms around his neck and clasped him tightly, as though she would have held him with all her girl’s strength back from the Malebolge of ruin into which he was about to plunge. “Oh, Eastworth, I would give my life to find you indeed right! I would rather be wrong a thousand times than you should be wrong once! But I see this all too clearly to deceive myself. I have loved this Union so much! I have thought of her as the Promised Land, the New Jerusalem, the refuge of all the oppressed, the hope of the world! And would you aim a deathblow at her? Oh, think how weak she would be if broken up and divided! Think how the old despotic monarchies of the East would rejoice over her downfall, which would prove self-government a failure among nations. Oh, my dearest, let me hold you back! I would give my life—almost my soul—to save you from this vortex!” “Erminie, love, you speak from prejudice and from feeling, and not from reason and judgment. Dear love, I will not reproach you, though you have called my devotion to my native State and her confederates treason, but I will say that when a man is charged with treason he has the right to defend himself. Will you hear my defence?” “Eastworth, if I have said anything offensive to you, I do earnestly beg your forgiveness. But I did not mean to offend.” “Will you hear my defence?” “Oh, yes, yes!” Colonel Eastworth began to plead the cause of Secession with all the arguments by which astute leaders influence the opinions of people. These arguments are too familiar to all to need repetition here. But they made no impression on the mind of Erminie Rosenthal. She was not to be deceived by sophistry or persuaded by eloquence, or even won over by love. “Her eye was single, and her whole soul was full of light.” Hour after hour slipped away while he argued, persuaded and implored Erminie to unite her fate with his own, and accompany him to Virginia. And Erminie suffered, wept, but remained steadfast to her principles.