ngle word, "I shall go." Really angry with her for
the first and last time, but not choosing to express my displeasure in
the presence of a third person, I hurried Eveena down the ladder into
our cabin.

"Tell me," I said, "what, according to your own rules of feminine
reserve and obedience, you deserve? What would one of your people say
to a wife who followed him without leave into the company of a
stranger, to listen to that which she knew she was not meant to hear?"

She answered by throwing off her veil and head-dress, and standing up
silent before me.

"Answer me, child," I repeated, more than half appeased by the mute
appeal of her half-raised eyes and submissive attitude. "I know you
will not tell me that you have not broken all the restraints of your
own laws and customs. What would your father, for instance, say to
such an escapade?"

She was silent, till the touch of my hand, contradicting perhaps the
harshness of my words, encouraged her to lift her eyes, full of tears,
to mine.

"Nothing," was her very unexpected reply.

"Nothing?" I rejoined. "If you can tell me that you have not done
wrong, I shall be sorry to have reproved you so sharply."

"I shall tell you no such lie!" she answered almost indignantly. "You
asked what would be _said_."

I was fairly at a loss. The figure which Martial grammarians call "the
suppressed alternative" is a great favourite, and derives peculiar
force from the varied emphasis their syntax allows. But, resolved not
to understand a meaning much more distinctly conveyed in her words
than in my translation, I replied, "_I_ shall say nothing then,
except--don't do it again;" and I extricated myself promptly if
ignominiously from the dilemma, by leaving the cabin and closing the
door, so sharply and decidedly as to convey a distinct intimation that
it was not again to be opened.

We breakfasted earlier than usual. My gentle bride had been subdued
into a silence, not sullen, but so sad that when her wistful eyes
followed my every movement as I prepared to start, I could willingly,
to bring back their brightness, have renounced the promise of the day.
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