"
"Say you thus, Alice? then have I misunderstood your meaning or
misinterpreted your acts. My lot is not altogether that of a neglected
man, unless the favor of princes and the smiles of queens are allowed to
go for nothing. My life is, however, one of many and fearful dangers;
and yet it is not filled altogether with calamities and mishaps; is it,
Alice?" He paused a moment, but in vain, for her answer. "Nay, then, I
have been deceived in the estimation that the world has affixed to my
combats and enterprises! I am not, Alice, the man I would be, or even
the man I had deemed myself."
"You have gained a name, John, among the warriors of the age," she
answered, in a subdued voice; "and it is a name that may be said to be
written in blood!"
"The blood of my enemies, Alice!"
"The blood of the subjects of your natural prince! The blood of those
who breathe the air you first breathed, and who were taught the same
holy lessons of instruction that you were first taught; but, which, I
fear, you have too soon forgotten!"
"The blood of the slaves of despotism!" he sternly interrupted her; "the
blood of the enemies of freedom! You have dwelt so long in this dull
retirement, and you have cherished so blindly the prejudices of your
youth, that the promise of those noble sentiments I once thought I could
see budding in Alice Dunscombe has not been fulfilled."
"I have lived and thought only as a woman, as become my sex and
station," Alice meekly replied; "and when it shall be necessary for me
to live and think otherwise, I should wish to die.
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