"The fortification plans?"

"Yes." His eyes wandered from her face to the night outside. How gray
and sad the world was! "You will always love your father, dearie?"

"Love him? Always!"

"Whatever betide, for weal or woe?"

"Whatever betide."

How easy it was for her to say these words!

"And yet, some day, you must leave me, to take up your abode in some
other man's heart. My only wish is that it may beat for you as truly
as mine does."

She did not reply, but stepped to the window and pressed her brow to
the chilled pane. A yellow and purple line marked the path of the
vanished sun; the million stars sparkled above; far away she could
see the lights of the city. Of what was she thinking, dreaming? Was
she dreaming of heroes such as we poets and novelists invent and hang
upon the puppet-beam? Ah, the pity of these dreams the young girl
has! She dreams of heroes and of god-like men, and of the one that is
to come. But, ah! he never comes, he never comes; and the dream fades
and dies, and the world becomes real. A man may find his ideal, but a
woman, never. To youth, the fields of love; to man, the battle-
ground; to old age, a chair in the sunshine and the wreck of dreams!