An agitating vibration passed through Julie’s body. Was this the hour of fulfillment, toward which she had been moving like a star?
“Promise me,” he urged, “that you will belong to me forever, that you will go with me out of this poisonous East.”
“Of course,” she said; “of course,” speaking like one in a dream. “Why, are you too afraid that something might happen?”
“We could be married soon, and have done with all fears.”
Julie started perceptibly. Her thoughts had never traveled that far. Marriage seemed vaguely a sort of risk to her emotion.
“Why can’t we go on for a while as we are—till you are ordered away?” she queried nervously. “It is so perfect as it is.”
“But my existence is so uncertain! And why should you continue to be flung around in this whirlpool? Some one should look out for you.”
“Because I am such a little fool that I can’t look out for myself? Oh, let us wait till the end of my term. I came out here, you see, really to do something—and I am so soon to drop it all!” An unconscious anguish crept into her voice.
“I believe this country has put a spell upon you, or you wouldn’t be putting me off.”
They were walking now along the causeway. The island ahead of them lay like a sable mesh of mystery, with midnight archways through its dense foliage. Startling creepers, like multiform arms of an unseen body, groped over the heart of the earth. A sad fragrance floated out to them. Once or twice the moonlight making bold with the forest lit up its stilly beautiful chambers.