ould not allow me to rise from the cushions till she had
summoned an _amba_ and procured the material of a morning meal, though
the hour was noon. Far too considerate to question me then, she was
perhaps a little disappointed that, almost before I had dressed, a
message from her father summoned me to his presence.

"It is right," he said quietly, and with no show of feeling, though
his face was somewhat pale, "that you should be acquainted with the
fulfilment of the sentence you assisted to pass. The outcast was found
this morning dead in his own chamber. Nay, you need not start! We need
no deathsman; alike by sudden disease, by suicide, by accident, our
doom executes itself. But enough of this. I accepted the vote which
invested you with the second rank in our Order, less because I think
you will render service to it here than that I desired you to possess
that entire knowledge of its powers and secrets which might enable you
to plant a branch or offshoot where none but you could carry it ...
That you will soon leave this world seemed to me probable, before the
anticipations of practical prudence were confirmed by the voice of
prophecy. Your Astronaut shall be stored with all of which I know you
have need, and with any materials whose use I do not know that you may
point out. To remove it from Asnyea would now be too dangerous. If you
receive tidings that shall bring you again into its neighbourhood, do
not lose the opportunity of re-entering it.... And now let me take
leave of you, as of a dear friend I may not meet again."

"Do you know," I said, more touched by the tone than by the words,
"that Eveena asked and I gave a promise that when I do re-enter it she
shall be my companion?"

"I did not know it, but I took for granted that she would desire it,
and I should have been grieved to doubt that you would assent. I
cannot disturb her peace by saying to her what I have just said to
you, and must part from her as on any ordinary occasion."

That parting, happily, I did not witness. Before evening we re-entered
our vessel, and returned home without any incident worthy of mention.

To my surprise, my return plunged me at once into the kind of vexation
which Eveena had so anxiously endeavoured to spare me, and which I had
hoped Eunane's greater decision and less exaggerated tenderness would
have avoided. She seemed excited and almost fretful, and before we had
been half an hour at home had greeted me with a string of