chamber we had last left; and she expostulated as earnestly as her
obedience would permit against the fiat that assigned it to her.

"Choose what room you please, then," I said; "but understand that, so
far as my will and my trust can make you, you are the mistress here."

"Well, then," she answered, "give me the little octagon beside your
own:"--the smallest and simplest, but to my taste the prettiest, room
in the house. "I should like to be near you still, if I may; but,
believe me, I shall not be frozen (hurt) because you think another
hand better able to steer the carriage, if mine may sometimes rest in
yours."

Leading her into the room she had chosen, and having installed her
among the cushions that were to form her couch, I silenced decisively
her renewed protest.

"Let me answer you on this point, once and for ever, Eveena. To me
this seems matter of right, not of favour or fitness. But favour and
fitness here go with right. I could no more endure to place another
before or beside you than I could break the special bond between us,
and deny the hope of which the Serpent" (laying my hand on her
shoulder-clasp, which, by mere accident, was shaped into a faint
resemblance to the mystic coil) "is the emblem; the hope that alone
can make such love as ours endurable, or even possible, to creatures
that must die. She who knelt with me before the Emerald Throne, who
took with me the vows so awfully sanctioned, shall hold the first
place in my home as in my heart till the Serpent's promise be
fulfilled."

Both were silent for some time, for never could we refer to that
Vision--whether an objective fact, or an impression communicated from
one spirit to the other by the occult force of intense sympathy--save
by such allusion; and the remembrance never failed to affect us both
with a feeling too deep for words. Eveena spoke again--

"I am sorry you have so bound yourself; perhaps only because you knew
me first. And it shames me to receive fresh proof of your kindness
to-night."

"And why, my own?"

"Do not make me feel," she said, "that--though the measured sentences
you have taught me to call scolding seemed the sharpest of all
penances--there is a heavier yet in the silence which withholds
forgiveness."

"What have I yet to forgive, Madonna?"

But Eveena could read my feelings in spite of my words, and knew that
the pain she had given was too recent to allow me to misconceive her
penitence.

"I _ought_ to