She could not swallow food; she turned away from the
the{sic} sympathy of all who loved her. Even Isabel's
caresses were received with an apathy which was terrifying.
With the severed curl of her boy's hair in her fingers, she
sat in tearless, voiceless anguish.
Poor Antonia, weighed down with the double loss that had come
to her, felt, for the first time, as if their condition was
utterly hopeless. The mental picture of her brother and her
lover meeting their tragic death hand in hand, their youth and
beauty, their courage and fidelity, was constantly before her.
With all the purity and strength of her true heart, she loved
Dare; but she did not for a moment wish that he had taken a
different course. "It is just what I should have expected
from him," she said to Isabel. "If he had let poor Jack die
alone, I could never have loved him in the same way
again. But oh, Isabel, how miserable I am?"
"Sweet Antonia, I can only weep with you. Think of this; it
was on last Sunday morning. Do you remember how sad you
were?"
"I was in what seemed to be an unreasonable distress. I went
away to weep. My very thoughts were tired with their
sorrowful journeys up and down my mind, trying to find out
hope and only meeting despair. Oh, my brave Jack! Oh, my
dear Dare, what a cruel fate was your's!"
"And mi madre, Antonia? I fear, indeed, that she will lose
her senses.
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