My voice half sank, and the hitherto unsuspected fact that Mr. Dodan had observed my physical danger, and now was planning to interrupt his daughter’s intimacy and hallucination for a poor, failing man, struggling with an impossible problem, and a mortal malady, seemed suddenly understood by me.  I turned to her a face of questioning concern.  Her eyes were still fixed upon the distant, pulsating sea.  “No,” she answered, half nonchalantly.  “I suppose not, and yet—­why not!  I have only known this country; to cross the great ocean, to see the capital of the world, to learn the great wonders of its palaces and temples, to see its multitudes, to see the Queen.  Ah! to see the Queen!”

Her hands folded tightly together across her brow, she looked the very embodiment of reverent expectation, and the blushing roses on her cheeks, the lovelight in her eyes seemed to deepen for an instant, and then pale slightly, as she turned to me only to see me bury my head in my hands, holding back the cry of stifled hope that often before had leaped to my lips, but never had before so nearly passed them.

“Oh, Bradford,” she cried, “would you mind so much!  I would soon be back again.  And then, you know, this awful telegraphic work would be over, and we could be happy together without a thought of that cold, far-away Mars!”

We talked on together till the dusky night had begun to gather its shadows about us, and Mars, that marvellous spot of light from whose untouched continents the waves of magnetic oscillation might even then be starting on their pathless transit across the abyss of space, destined for my ear, began to shine above us.

It was clear to me now that Mr. Dodan had been carefully nursing in his daughter a desire to see England and the Queen, and her own little birthplace, and that he had formed a resolution to separate us, for his daughter’s best interests, as he thought.

I suffered from a very proud, sensitive nature, perhaps unwholesomely intensified by the lonely life I had led, and a peculiar sense of my difference from other people.

This revelation, so unwelcome, so fraught with painful anticipations, roused my pride to a sharp climax of revolt, disdain and defiance.  Miss Dodan should go,—­I should urge it.  I would applaud and hasten it, there would be no weakness, no supplication, no obstacles on my part.  Let death write his inerrant claim to me, let it be recognized; Mr. Dodan need not be disturbed as to my absolute self-control.

The very acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan’s absence, fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed indifference and gayety to all my actions.  I argued against delay, and dwelt with excellent effect upon the charms of the visit.  I assumed that Miss Dodan needed the change, that the educational value of such an experience would be incalculable.

Mr. Dodan was frankly surprised and pleased.  This unexpected support and enthusiastic commendation of his plan was something he gratefully accepted, and he assumed a new manner toward me.  He ascribed to me a power of self-renunciation which won his ardent approval and admiration.