But this must not be; and turning to take leave on the threshold, I
said--
"Be sure I shall come to no harm; and if I did, the worst pang of
death would be the memory of the first sharp words I have spoken to
you, and which, I confess, were an ill return for the inconvenient
expression of your affectionate anxiety."
"Do not speak so," she half whispered. "I deserved any mark of your
displeasure; I only wish I could persuade you that the sharpest sting
lies in the lips we love. Do remember, since you would not let me run
the slightest risk of harm, that if you come to hurt you will have
killed me."
"Rest assured I shall come to no serious ill. I hope this evening to
laugh with you at your alarms; and so long as you do not see me either
in the flesh or in the spirit, you may know that I am safe. I _could
not_ leave you for ever without meeting you again."
This speech, which I should have ventured in no other presence, would
hardly have established my lunacy more decisively in Martial eyes than
in those of Terrestrial common sense. It conveyed, however, a real if
not sufficient consolation to Eveena; the idea it implied being not
wholly unfamiliar to a daughter of the Star.
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