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All this was said with a refined sarcase stealthily towardis the instinct of self-preservation within us that I doubt not a would-be suicide, caught in the act of hanging hile madly for his life were someone else to forcibly adjust the noose about his neck At all events, I found , at the last moment, to have soain time to think what I should do to escape, I said to him: "Why do you bear me such malice? Can you not see that any injury I ht the quarrel, and I took the only means at hand to protectI could easily have done, but was content ood ely "That has nothing to do with it Had you only pounded ht live, but you have pounded my heart! It is for that I hate you, and for that you die!"

"What have I done?" I asked

"What have you done?" he roared, furious with rage "I will tell you You have by ic possessed the mind of my wife Your name, your cursed name is ever upon her lips! My entreaties,else Even in her sleep she starts up and calls for you You have cast a spell upon her Day by day she droops and withers like a lotus-flohose root is severed; yet ever and always, is your cursed na istered a sacred oath to kill you, and remove the accursed spell you have thrown upon her"

Had he advanced upon me at this moment he would have found me as helpless as a child, so overcome was I by the sudden joy which seized upon me, and seemed to turn my melancholy inside out Those words of hatred had been as a torch illuloom of my despair, for they had shown ether barren and unproductive The life which has known the heaven of true love cannot be called a failure There is no wall so high, no distance so great, no separation so co hearts! Lona, then, was still e made! In an instant life became an inexpressible benefaction, for it permitted me to realise I was beloved,--and death was dowered with a new horror--the fear that I should cease to know it