to realise and rest upon such love as belongs to a life in which woman, never affecting the independence of coequal partnership, has never yet sunk by reaction into a mere slave and toy.  It was hard, cruelly hard, on one who had given in the first hour of marriage, and never failed to give, a love whose devotion had no limit, no reserve or qualification; a submission that was less self-sacrifice or self-suppression than the absolute surrender of self—­of will, feeling, and self-interest—­to the judgment and pleasure of him she loved:  hard on her who had neither thought nor care for herself as apart from me.

When I understood to what I had actually committed myself, I snatched the papers from her, and might have torn them to pieces but for the gentle restraining hand she laid upon mine.

“You cannot help it,” she said, the tears falling from her eyes, but with a self-command of which I could not have supposed her capable.  “It seems hard on me; but it is better so.  It is not that you are not content with me, not that you love me less.  I can bear it better when it comes from a stranger, and is forced upon you without, and even, I think, against your will.”

The pressure of the arm that clasped her waist, and the hand that held her own, was a sufficient answer to any doubt that might be implied in her last words; and, lifting her eyes to mine, she said—­

“I shall always remember this.  I shall always think that you were sorry not to have at least a little while longer alone with me.  It is selfish to feel glad that you are pained; but your sympathy, your sharing my own feeling, comforts me as I never could have been comforted when, as must have happened sooner or later, you had found for yourself another companion.”

“Child, do you mean to say there is ‘no portal to this passage;’ and that, however much against my will, I am bound to women I have never seen, and never wish to see?”

“You have signed,” replied Eveena gently.  “The contracts are stamped, and are in the official’s hands; and you could not attempt to break them without giving mortal offence to the Prince, who has intended you a signal favour.  Besides, these girls themselves have done no wrong, and deserve no affront or unkindness from you.”

I was silent for some minutes; at first simply astounded at the calm magnanimity which was mingled with her perfect simplicity, then, pondering the possibilities of the situation—­

“Can we not escape?” I said at last, rather to myself than to her.

“Escape!” she repeated with surprise.  “And from what?  The favour shown you by our Sovereign, the wealth he has bestowed, the personal interest he has taken in perfecting every detail of one of the most splendid homes ever given save to a prince—­every incident of your position—­make you the most envied man in this world; and you would escape from them?”

Gazing for a few moments in my face, she added—­