r death which was his nature. So it seemed: yet this
desire for her recovery did not arise out of any lack of love for
death; its true cause I was to learn afterward; and I was to know that
if he desired Almah's recovery now, it was only that she might live
long enough to encounter death in a more terrific form. But just then
all this was unknown, and I judged him by myself.

At last I learned that she was much better, and would be out on the
following jom. This intelligence filled me with a fever of eager
anticipation, so great that I could think of nothing else. Sleep was
impossible. I could only wait, and try as best I might to quell my
impatience. At last the time came. I sat waiting. The curtain was
drawn aside. I sprang up, and, hurrying toward her, I caught her in my
arms and wept for joy. Ah me, how pale she looked! She bore still the
marks of her illness. She seemed deeply embarrassed and agitated at
the fervor of my greeting; while I, instead of apologizing or trying
to excuse myself, only grew more agitated still.

"Oh, Almah," I cried. "I should have died if you had not come back to
me! Oh, Almah, I love you better than life and I never knew how dearly
I loved you till I thought that I had lost you! Oh, forgive me, but I
must tell you--and don't weep, darling."

She was weeping as I spoke. She said nothing, but twined her arms
around my neck and wept on my breast. After this we had much to say
that we had never mentioned before. I cannot tell the sweet words that
she said to me; but I now learned that she had loved me from the
first--when I came to her in her loneliness, when she was homesick and
heartsick; and I came, a kindred nature, of a race more like her own;
and she saw in me the only one of all around her whom it was possible
not to detest, and therefore she loved me.

We had many things to say to one another, and long exchanges of
confidence to make. She now for the first time told me all the sorrow
that she had endured in her captivity--sorrow which she had kept
silent and shut up deep within her breast. At first her life here had
been so terrible that it had brought her down nearly to death. After
this she had sunk into dull despair; she had grown familiar with
horrors and lived in a state of unnatural calm. From this my arrival
had roused her. The display of feeling on my part had brought back
all her old self, and roused anew all those feelings which in her had
become dormant. The darkness,