But a shadow came into their lives. He grew silent, reserved, almost afraid of beautiful Lilia. She watched with eager anxiety and entreated his confidence, but his lips were sealed. Only his tremulous voice and shaking hand betrayed suffering. Sometimes she fancied that his hands grew palsied and his bright eye was dim, but repelled the fancy with terror. One day he came home with such a look that her heart stood still, and words died upon her lips. He gazed into her eyes with passionate agony and, taking her hands, said “Will you still believe in me if I say we must part; that I must leave you and go away, and you must stay here and live out your life—your precious life, so dear to me—all, all alone?” Then her courage came, and she said, “No, I will never leave you. You are mine. I must go too, wherever you go!” “But,” said he, “I have seen the examining surgeon today, and he says I must go by the next trip of the steamer to Honolulu.” And then the full measure of her woe dawned upon the stricken wife. With unutterable anguish she threw her arms about his body and clasped him tightly to her breast. “I was allowed to come here and prepare to go, and to bid a last farewell to all I hold so dear. I shall never see these trees, the flowers, this house, my friends, nor you, my precious wife, again.” But her face had grown hard and stern, and, relaxing the hold, she told her plan. It was to take him into a far off deep recess in the woods. There was up the mountain side a deep crater, overgrown with trees, ferns, vines and a wild luxurious growth, which kindly nature had draped so softly that its hideousness was lost. It was considered inaccessible, and only the family knew of an ancient lava cavern which entered its deepest recess. One of several mouths of the cavern was near the house. “But the law says that I must go” he urged. “There is no law higher than my love for you,” and he yielded to her imperious urgency. Quickly and stealthily she carried such articles as the simplest life might require, and a few days later, when the officers of the law came, Keawe was not to be found and no one knew where they had gone.