"

"What's to hinder your continuing to think?" asked Col. Robinson.

"What you tell me changes the whole complexion of affairs," replied the
doctor.

"If that be so I am glad I told you before you got head over heels in
love."

"Yes," said Dr. Gresham, absently.

Dr. Gresham was a member of a wealthy and aristocratic family, proud of
its lineage, which it could trace through generations of good blood to
its ancestral isle. He had become deeply interested in Iola before he
had heard her story, but after it had been revealed to him he tried to
banish her from his mind; but his constant observation of her only
increased his interest and admiration. The deep pathos of her story, the
tenderness of her ministrations, bestowed alike on black and white, and
the sad loneliness of her condition, awakened within him a desire to
defend and protect her all through her future life. The fierce clashing
of war had not taken all the romance out of his nature. In Iola he saw
realized his ideal of the woman whom he was willing to marry. A woman,
tender, strong, and courageous, and rescued only by the strong arm of
his Government from a fate worse than death. She was young in years, but
old in sorrow; one whom a sad destiny had changed from a light-hearted
girl to a heroic woman. As he observed her, he detected an undertone of
sorrow in her most cheerful words, and observed a quick flushing and
sudden paling of her cheek, as if she were living over scenes that were
thrilling her soul with indignation or chilling her heart with horror.
As nurse and physician, Iola and Dr. Gresham were constantly thrown
together. His friends sent him magazines and books, which he gladly
shared with her. The hospital was a sad place. Mangled forms, stricken
down in the flush of their prime and energy; pale young corpses,
sacrificed on the altar of slavery, constantly drained on her
sympathies. Dr. Gresham was glad to have some reading matter which might
divert her mind from the memories of her mournful past, and also furnish
them both with interesting themes of conversation in their moments of
relaxation from the harrowing scenes through which they were constantly
passing. Without any effort or consciousness on her part, his friendship
ripened into love. To him her presence was a pleasure, her absence a
privation; and her loneliness drew deeply upon his sympathy. He would
have merited his own self-contempt if, by word or deed, he had done
anything to t