“Shireen is yours.”
“But I dare not deprive you of a friend so good and beautiful.”
“Nay, nay, do not speak thus. She will be a soldier’s cat.”
“On one condition only shall I accept the gift, Beebee.”
“And that condition?”
“That I may be permitted to bring her back to you at some future time. Within two years, Beebee?”
Once more he touched her hand.
“Two years,” she said, as if speaking to herself. “I will be dead ere then.”
“Nay, nay, nay,” he cried, almost fiercely, “for the wrong that your parents would do you must never be accomplished.”
“Speak no more, sir. Speak no more, Edgar.”