Will You Love Me in September

We clung together without speaking for some minutes; then I drew away and said, "Dickon ... Is he ... ?”

She nodded. "He died ... from his wounds at Cullodon.”

"Oh ... Sabrina ...”

She could not speak. She could only cling to me as though begging for comfort. I said to her, "Do you remember when we did our lessons together? There was one thing we discussed, and I often think of it. It was what one of the Roman poets-Terence, I think-wrote. It was: 'The life of man is as when you play with dice; if that which you chiefly want to throw does not fall, you must by skill make use of what has fallen by chance.' Everything depends on the drop of the dice, but once it has fallen, there can be no going back. We must do the best we can with what is left to us.”

She nodded; and in comforting her, I could comfort myself.

Later we talked. All through the day and night we talked. "He would go, Clarissa.

I tried to stop him. I reminded him of what had happened before. But he had to go.

He was a Jacobite, and nothing could make him forget that.”

I thought, He forgot it once when he helped me to escape. And a great pride filled my heart at that moment.

"I begged him," she went on. "I pleaded with him, but he could not stop himself.

He had to go. I understood at last. He was so certain that Charles Edward would succeed.

And he did at first, but it was hopeless against the English armies. And Cumberland was determined that there should not be another Jacobite rebellion. The slaughter ... oh, Clarissa, I could not describe it.”

"You were there?”

"I followed him. I could not let him go. I was nearby, waiting. I wanted to join him when the battle was over. He was wounded badly, but some of his men brought him in from the battlefield. Thank God, at least he died with me beside him.”

"Sabrina, my dear child, how you must have suffered!”

"Yes, I have suffered. I never really found complete happiness. You didn't entirely deceive me, Clarissa. You loved him, didn't you?”

"It's over," I said. "Dickon is lost to us both now.”

"He spoke of you when he was dying. I think his mind had gone back to that time when you were young. He kept saying your name over and over again.”

I could scarcely bear it. Nor could she; but as she told me of his last hours we wept, mingling our tears.

But she is back with me now. We are together, as something tells me we were always meant to be.

And yesterday she called in the doctor. She did not let me know that she had done so, and when I was told by one of the maids that the doctor had been there, I was filled with a terrible apprehension.

I ran to her bedroom. She greeted me with a smile. I looked at her intently. There was no mistaking the radiance in her face.

"I was hoping it was true," she said. "I did not want to tell you until I was sure.

But now I know. Oh, Clarissa, I am going to have a child... . Dickon's child.”

I was trembling with a joy I had not known since the day Dickon came back, for now I knew he was going to live on ... for both of us.