“Brave girl!” he replied, with the affectation of a melancholy smile. “Brave Theresa, you would bear exile, ruin, poverty with the outlawed traitor; and we might still be happy. But, alas, girl! it is too late to fly. The ports are all closed throughout England. It is too late to fly, and to fight is impossible.” “Then it remains only that we die!” she exclaimed, casting herself into his arms, “and that is not so difficult, now that I know you love me, Jasper.” But, even as she uttered the words, his previous conversation recurred to her mind, and she started from his arms, crying out, “but you spoke of a sacrifice!—a sacrifice which I could make! Is it possible that I can save you?” “Not me alone, Theresa, but all the band of brothers who are sworn to this emprise; nor them alone, but England, which may, by your deed, still be liberated from the tyrant.” She turned her beautiful eyes upward, and her lips moved rapidly, although she spoke not. She was praying for aid from on high—for strength to do her duty. He watched her with calm, expectant, unmoved eyes, and muttered to himself, “I have gained. She will yield.” “Now,” she said, “now,” as her prayer was ended, “I am strong now to bear. Tell me, Jasper, what must I do to save you?” “I cannot tell you, dearest. I cannot—it is too much—you could not make it; nor if _you_ would, could I. Let it pass. We will die—all die together.” “And England!” exclaimed the girl, with her face kindling gloriously; “and our mother England, must she perish by inches in the tyrant’s clutch, because we are cowards? No, Jasper, no. Be of more constant mind. Tell me, what is it I must do? and, though it wring my heart and rack my brain, if I _can_ save you and your gallant friends, and our dear native land, I will save them, though it kill me.” “Could you endure to part from me, Theresa—to part from me forever?” “To part from you, Jasper!” No written phrase can express the agony, the anguish, the despair, which were made manifest in every sound of those few simple words. A breaking heart spoke out in every accent. “Ay, to part from me, never to see me more—never to hear my voice; only to know that I exist, and that I love you—love you beyond my own soul! Could you do this, Theresa, in the hope of a meeting hereafter, where no tyranny should ever part us any more?” “I know not—I know not!” she exclaimed, in a shrill, piercing tone, most unlike her usual soft, slow utterance. “Is this the sacrifice you spoke of? Would this be called for at my hands?” “To part from me so utterly that it should not be known or suspected that we had ever met—ever been wedded?”