ll be bereft of all that I care for!" cried he,
wildly.

Terrified by the excited tone in which he spoke, as well as by the
feverish lustre of his eyes, Sybella tried to calm and soothe him, but
he listened--if, indeed, he heard her--with utter apathy.

"Come!" cried he, at last, "if your resolve be taken, so is mine. If you
leave for India, I shall never quit the Crimea."

"It is not thus I expected one to speak who loves his mother as you do,"
said she, reproachfully.

"Ah, Sybella, it would indeed have been a happy day for me when I should
have returned to her in honor, could I but have said, 'You have not
alone a son beneath your roof, but a dear daughter also.' If all that
they call my great luck had brought this fortune, then had I been indeed
a fellow to be envied. Without that hope there is not another that I
want to cling to."

She tried gently to withdraw her hand from his, but he held it in his
grasp, and continued,--

"You, who never heard of me till the first day we met, know little
of the stored-up happiness your very name has afforded me for many a
day,--how, days long, Jack talked of you to me as we rambled together,
how the long nights of the trenches were beguiled by telling of
you,--till at length I scarcely knew whether I had not myself known
and loved you for years. I used to fancy, too, how every trait of poor
Jack--his noble ardor, his generous devotion--might be displayed amidst
the softer and more graceful virtues of womanhood; and at last I came to
know you, far and away above all I have ever dreamed of."

"Let me go,--let me say good-bye," said she, in a faint whisper.

"Bear with me a few moments longer, Sybella," cried he, passionately.
"With all their misery, they are the happiest of my life."

"This is unfair,--it is almost ungenerous of you," said she, with
scarcely stifled emotion, and still endeavoring to withdraw her hand.

"So it is!" cried he, suddenly; "it is unmanly and ignoble both, and it
is only a poor, selfish sick man could stoop to plead so abjectly." He
relinquished her hand as he spoke, and then, grasping it suddenly, he
pressed it to his lips, and burst into tears. "A soldier should be
made of better stuff, Sybella," said he, trying to smile.
"Goodbye,--good-bye."

"It is too late to say so now," said she, faintly; "I will not go."

"Not go,--not leave me, Sybella?" cried he. "Oh that I may have heard
you aright! Did you say you would remain with me, and for