"Do you promise?" I bargained, taking an unfair advantage. "Do you promise, Yasma?"
"If it's anything within my power—and will bring you happiness—of course I'll promise!"
"This will bring me the greatest happiness. When the last birds fly south, and the last of your people have gone away, I want you to stay here with me."
Yasma's response was a half-suppressed little cry—though whether of pain or astonishment I could not tell. But she averted her head, and a long silence descended. In the gathering darkness it would have been impossible to distinguish the expression of her face; but I felt intuitively what a blow she had been dealt.
Without a word we reached our cabin, and entered the dim, bare room. I busied myself lighting a candle from a wick we kept always burning in a jar of oil; then anxiously I turned to Yasma.
She was standing at the window gazing out toward the ghostly eastern peaks, her chin sagging down upon her upraised palm.
"Yasma," I murmured.
Slowly she turned to face me. "Oh, my beloved," she sighed, coming to me and placing her hands affectionately upon my shoulders, "I do not want to pain you. I do not want to pain you, as you have just pained me. But you have asked the one thing I cannot grant."
"But, Yasma, this is the only thing I really want!"
"It is more than I can give! You don't know what you ask!" she argued, as she quickly withdrew from me.