"There! There! I am joking. He did not read it, but I did have it in my hand, and I told him about you and that I was going back to take you with me."
Satisfied, she allowed herself to assume a more relaxed composure.
"You are going to destroy it, aren't you?"
He took it from his pocket and looked at it. She, too, glanced at it, and then at him.
"May I keep it? I treasure every word of it, you know."
"Did you but know how it was composed, you might ridicule me."
"I suppose you closed yourself behind some great veil to shut out the world from your view. Your mind toiled with thought until you were resolved upon the heroic. There was no scheme nor formula; your quill ran on and on in obedience to the flood of ideas which inspired it."
She lapsed into meditation; but she recovered herself immediately.
"No," she shook her head slowly though steadily. "At midnight with the aid of a little candle which burned itself out quite before the end."