was a perpetual slave. One only return did he owe me, even fidelity. I

earned that; I deserved it. Because I was mountain bred, unallied to the

noble and wealthy, shall he think to repay me by an empty name and station?

Let him take them back; without his love they are nothing to me. Their only

merit in my eyes was that they were his."

Thus passionately Perdita ran on. When I adverted to the question of their

entire separation, she replied: "Be it so! One day the period will arrive;

I know it, and feel it. But in this I am a coward. This imperfect

companionship, and our masquerade of union, are strangely dear to me. It is

painful, I allow, destructive, impracticable. It keeps up a perpetual fever

in my veins; it frets my immedicable wound; it is instinct with poison. Yet

I must cling to it; perhaps it will kill me soon, and thus perform a

thankful office."

In the mean time, Raymond had remained with Adrian and Idris. He was

naturally frank; the continued absence of Perdita and myself became

remarkable; and Raymond soon found relief from the constraint of months, by

an unreserved confidence with his two friends. He related to them the

situation in which he had found Evadne. At first, from delicacy to Adrian

he concealed her name; but it was divulged in the course of his narrative,

and her former lover heard with the most acute agitation the history of her

sufferings. Idris had shared Perdita's ill opinion of the Greek; but

Raymond's account softened and interested her. Evadne's constancy,

fortitude, even her ill-fated and ill-regulated love, were matter of

admiration and pity; especially when, from the detail of the events of the

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The Last Man