"I am so young! not yet, not yet, Philo! I am so young! Let me live a little while."
Was it a woman's plea, conscious of the tenderness she appealed to, or only a child's instinctive grasping after life, just life? If it were the first, it would be easy to finish; but a child's terror, a child's longing—that pulled hard at my manhood, and under the possibility, my own arm fell.
Instantly her head drooped. No defense did she utter; no further plea did she make; she simply waited.
"You have deserved death." This I managed to utter. "But if you will swear to obey me, you shall not pay your forfeit till you have had a further taste of life. Not in my house; there is not sufficient freedom within its walls for you; but in the broad world, where people dance and sing and grow old at their leisure, without duty and without care. For three months you shall have this, and have it to your heart's content. Then you shall come back to me my true wife, if your heart so prompts; if not, to tell me of your failure and quit me for ever. But—" Here I fear my voice grew terrible, for her hands instinctively rose again. "Those three months must be lived unstained. As you are in God's sight this hour, I demand of you to swear that, if you forget this or disregard it, or for any cause subject my name to dishonor, that you will return unbidden at the first moment your reason returns to you, to take what punishment I will. On this condition I send you away to-night. Aline, will you promise?"
She did not answer; but her face rose. I did not understand its look. There was pathos in it, and something else. That something else troubled me.
"Are you dissatisfied?" I asked. "Is the time too short? Do you want more months for dancing?"
She shook her head and the little hands rose again:
"Do not send me away," she faintly entreated; "I don't know why—but I—had rather stay."
"With me? Impossible. Are you ready to promise, Aline?"
Then she rose and looked me in the eye with courage, almost with resolution.