nly not yet."

She had betrayed herself, stung by words that seemed to express the
one doubt she could not nerve herself to endure--doubt of her loyalty
to me. Before I could speak, she looked up hastily, and began to
retract. I stopped her.

"I see--when you had done with it. But, Eveena, why conceal it? Do you
think I would not have given this or all the contents of the chest
into your hands, and asked no question?"

"Do you mean it? Could you have so trusted me?"

"My child! is it difficult to trust where I know there is no
temptation to wrong? Do you think that to-day I have doubted or
suspected you, even while you have accused yourself? I cannot guess at
your motive, but I am as sure as ever of your loyalty. Take these
things,"--forcing back upon her the phial and the magnets,--"yes, and
the test-stone." ... She burst into passionate tears.

"I cannot endure this. If I had dreamed your patience would have borne
with me half so far, I would never have tried it so, even for your own
sake. I meant to be found out and accept the consequences in silence.
But you trust me so, that I must tell you what I wanted to conceal.
When you kept on the surface it made me so ill"---

"But, Eveena, if the remedy be not worse than the sickness, why not
ask for it openly?"

"It was not that. Don't you understand? Of course, I would bear any
suffering rather than have done this; but then you would have found me
out at once. I wanted to conceal my suffering, not to escape it."

"My child! my child! how could you put us both to all this pain?"

"You know you would not have given me the draught; you would have left
the surface at once; and I cannot bear to be always in the way, always
hindering your pleasures, and even your discoveries. You came across a
distance that makes a bigger world than this look less than that
light, through solitude and dangers and horrors I cannot bear to think
of, to see and examine this world of ours. And then you leave things
unseen or half-seen, you spoil your work, because a girl is seasick!
You ran great risk of death and got badly hurt to see what our hunting
was like, and you will not let my head ache that you may find out what
our sea-storms and currents are! How can I bear to be such a burden
upon you? You trust me, and, I believe," (she added, colouring), "you
love me, twelvefold more than I deserve; yet you think me unwilling or
unworthy to take ever so small an interest in your work, to be