These two feelings were blended together in her
breast. She had taught herself to look to Cathelineau as the future
saviour of her country; she loved his virtue, his patriotism, and his
valour; and her heart was capable of no other love while that existed
in it so strongly. The idea of looking on Cathelineau as a lover, of
seeing him kneeling at her feet, or listening to him while he whispered
sweet praises of her beauty, had never occurred to her; had she dreamed
it possible that he could do so, half her admiration of him would have
vanished. No, there was nothing earthly, nothing mundane in Agatha's
love, for though she did love the fallen hero of La Vendee, the patriot
postillion of St. Florent, she did not shed a tear when she heard that
he was dragging his wounded body to St. Laurent, that he might have the
comfort of her tender care in his last moments; her hand did not shake
as she wrote a line to her father to say that she could not leave the
hospital that evening, or probably the next; nor did she for one half
hour neglect the duties which her less distinguished patients required
her to perform; but still she felt her heart was cold within her, and
that if God had so willed it, she could, without regret, take her place
in the grave beside the stricken idol of her admiration, who had fallen
at Nantes while fighting for his God and his King.
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