"
"God bless him!" said Walter.
"And I have an experienced engineer on the road, and the things civilians
always forget--tents and provisions of all sorts. We will set an army to
work sooner than your sweetheart, poor girl, shall lose her life by any
fault of ours."
"My sweetheart," cried Walter, starting suddenly from his chair. "There,
don't cling to me, women. No man shall head that army but I. My
sweetheart! God help me--SHE'S MY WIFE."
CHAPTER XXII.
REMORSE.
In a work of this kind not only the external incidents should be noticed,
but also what may be called the mental events. We have seen a calamity
produce a great revulsion in the feelings of Colonel Clifford; but as for
Robert Bartley his very character was shaken to the foundation by his
crime and its terrible consequences. He was now like a man who had glided
down a soft sunny slope, and was suddenly arrested at the brink of a
fathomless precipice. Bartley was cunning, selfish, avaricious,
unscrupulous in reality, so long as he could appear respectable, but he
was not violent, nor physically reckless, still less cruel.
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