"'But wilt thou always love me so?'
"'Always, darling; always—until the race of my life is run, and all power of loving is stayed by the hand of death. Here, in this arbour, I swear it. By my home world yonder, and all that I hold dear thereon—see you, glimmering as a star above the tree-crests in the southern sky—I pledge to love and to worship you, Volinè, so long as I have life to love, and breath to speak it. Volinè, you are all in all to me; my first love and my last. Without you, life is but another name for pain; with you, bright and radiant joy for ever. I am yours, and you are mine. Volinè, be my wife. Crown my happiness to-night by saying "Yes."'
"'Stay, Harry; thy last words have brought a strange and unknown pain to my heart, and revealed the misery that is now before me whichever way I answer thee. Harry, the sweets of wifehood with thee are a joy which I may never hope to reach. There is one barrier that must ever stand between us, which maketh impossible a union between a son of thy world and a daughter of mine. It hath been so ordained, and therefore we cannot alter it to meet our will. This barrier of which I speak is the span of life. Here, as thou knowest there are old men amongst us who have seen five hundred summers whiten into winter. Four hundred years are the men of Gathma's usual span, even as thou hast told me but seventy are the limit of the men of Earth and thine. I am but five and twenty summers—comparatively in childhood, yet—and for fifty summers more I shall enjoy the sweets of youth. Thou art in the middle of thy tiny course, and in a few more years will reach the close of thy allotted span. Think then of my time of endless widowhood, sadly mourning for thee; yearning for the love I tasted, only to lose. Were I to wife with thee, my short happiness would ever be clouded by its early end! It must not, cannot be!'
"'Volinè, your words blot out all brightness from my heart, which now feels turned to stone. All now is dismal woe again—woe without a ray of hope, and there is naught but death before me to free me from my pain. Without you I cannot, will not, live, for life would be but a living death of dark despair. Is there no hope for me? No hope, Volinè dearest? Am I but to review this promised land of happiness from afar off, only to turn my face away from its green pastures for ever? Ah, no, it is too horrible!'
"'My poor Harry, it is as hard for me as for thee; for I love thee as a woman only loves when she doth love, that is with all her soul. No hope can lighten our darkness or leaven our sorrow. Yet, stay! There is one way—one only; but, alas! it is all too terrible—too terrible to speak.' And here she burst into a passionate fit of sobbing, and clung tightly to me, stricken down with grief.
"I soothed her as best I could, and dried her hot tears with my own parched lips, sighs of agony meanwhile breaking unbidden from my own heart, and big beads of sweat rolling off my forehead like drops of molten pain.
"'Speak, my darling, speak unto me,' I implored. 'Give words unto your thoughts, and let me know and share them. Volinè, speak? or my heart will burst with its heavy weight of woe.'
"Then, mingled with her sobs and moans of anguish, she spoke to me thus:
"'Harry, thou canst purchase happiness, but the price thou wilt have to pay is as costly as it is terrible! I have heard that Holy Echri hath the power of prolonging life, of endowing mortal man with forces that rejuvenate. The ordeal is awful. It is one of fire! To him who would so prolong or purchase life, the penalty is that he shall suffer all the horrors of death by fire. I know not the secrets of the mystic rite; but I will question Echri on the morrow. Doth it not seem unholy? And yet; and—yet—love—is—sweet——'
"'Volinè, your words bring new hope to my heart. If Echri possesses this wondrous power, then will I prove my love for you in his fires. His furnace shall but burn the dross of my love away, but refine it into a yet purer passion!'