"I need not review our brief acquaintanceship, or reiterate to you
the feelings I have already expressed. If you can judge between true
love and gallantry, you know whether I am sincere or otherwise. I
could not offer you wealth, Isabella Gonzales. I could not offer you
rank. I have no fame to share with you; but O, if it be the will of
Heaven that another should call you wife, I pray that he may love
you as I have done. I am not so selfish but that I can utter this
prayer with all my heart, and in the utmost sincerity.
"The object of this hasty scrawl is once more to say to you
farewell; for it is sweet to me even to address you. May God bless
your dear brother, who has done much to sustain me, bowed down as I
have been with misfortune, and broken in spirit; and may the
especial blessing of Heaven rest ever on and around you.
"This will ever be the nightly prayer of LORENZO BEZAN."
When Isabella Gonzales received this note on the following day, its
author was nearly a dozen leagues at sea, bound for the port of
Cadiz, Spain! She hastily perused its contents again and again.
looked off upon the open sea, as though she might be able to recall
him, threw herself upon her couch, and wept bitter, scalding tears,
until weary nature caused her to sleep.
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