ou were kind to me, to
the last."

"I little thought," said I, hesitating long for some expression of
tenderness, which the language of Mars refuses to furnish,--"I little
thought to find in a world of which selfishness seems to be the
paramount principle, and the absence of real love even between man and
woman the most prevalent characteristic, a wife so true to the best
and deepest meaning of wedlock. Still less could I have hoped to find
such a wife in one who had scarcely spoken to me twenty-four hours
before our marriage. If my unexampled adventure had had no other
reward--if I had cared nothing for the triumph of discovering a new
world with all its wonders--Eveena, this discovery alone is reward in
full for all my studies, toils, and perils. For all I have done and
risked already, for all the risks of the future, I am tenfold repaid
in winning you."

She looked up at these words with an expression in which there was
more of bewilderment and incredulity than of satisfaction, evidently
touched by the earnestness of my tone, but scarcely understanding my
words better than if I had spoken in my own tongue. It would not be
worth while to record the next hour's conversation; I would only note
the strong and painful impression it left upon my mind. There was in
Eveena's language and demeanour a timidity--a sort of tentative
fearful venturing as on dangerous ground, feeling her way, as it were,
in almost every sentence--which could not be wholly attributed to the
shyness of a very young and very suddenly wedded bride. There was
enough and to spare of this shyness; but more of the sheer physical or
nervous fear of a child suddenly left in hands whose reputed severity
has thoroughly frightened her; not daring to give offence by silence,
but afraid at each word to give yet more fatal offence in speaking.
Longer experience of a world in which even the first passion of love
is devoid of tenderness--in which asserted equality has long since
deprived women of that claim to indulgence which can only rest on
acknowledged weakness--taught me but too well the meaning of this
fearful, trembling anxiety to please, or rather not to offend. I
suppose that even a brutal master hardly likes to see a child cower in
his presence as if constantly expecting a blow; and this cowering was
so evident in my bride's demeanour, that, after trying for a couple of
hours to coax her into confidence and unreserved feminine fluency, I
began to feel