Although a prisoner, confined apart and denied all intercourse, the mere presence of her lover in the same vessel gave her a sense of security. But now he was gone, whither and wherefore she could not tell, and she felt as if she were abandoned to the dreadful fate which so long had threatened her. To do her justice, too, her bitterest source of grief was in anxiety for the safety of Talbot. Had she heard nothing of him, she would have concluded that he was still among the prisoners, and by the strict vigilance of his guards denied the opportunity of communicating with her. But her persecutor was too malignant, was also too shrewd not to know that if he could persuade her of her lover’s desertion, he might more reasonably hope for success. She was therefore but too soon informed of the escape, of which the missing boat was sufficient proof; and through others every representation was made, calculated to impair her confidence and weaken her attachment. But, like a mail of proof, her own integrity protected her, and the malicious shafts fell harmless, creating no pain, and scarce attracting notice. Although young and inexperienced, scarce more than a nestling that had for the first time fledged its wing, this girl possessed the noblest attributes of her sex, and hers was more than the ordinary love of woman. True, deep, fervent love, such as that sex alone can feel, cannot harbor a doubt. Undying and unchangeable in itself, it cannot comprehend that, of the existence of which it is unconscious. Often placed unhappily, often denied the communion for which it yearns, it looks beyond the grave for the fruition of its hopes. “They sin who tell us love can die.” She had listened to the soft and hesitating whisper of proffered love, and her gushing eye and mantling cheek and throbbing breath had confessed that love to be requited. Her soul had mingled with another’s in the dearest and the noblest union which adorns and irradiates existence—the union of manly strength with shrinking beauty; of the clear eye to look upon, and the bold heart to encounter peril, with the step hesitating and timid as a fawn! of skill to do and will to dare, with affection to sustain and fortitude to endure; of man, fashioned in comeliness and radiant with virtue, with woman, the celestial link that binds him to a purer state! With a pledge as dear as it was enduring, they had sworn to preserve that union until it should be merged into that most glorious, holiest and most beautiful of all, which is effected in death—when their souls, stripped of the mortal coils which encumbered them, and wafted on the wings of love, should soar upward and onward, until side by side, inseparable as in life, and inseparable forever, they intoned their hymns of praise with the choir which surrounds the Eternal!