“Ah! ah!” said she, with wild energy, “but I was upon _the brow of the cliff_! the brink of destruction, where a single mis-step would have precipitated me into ruin; and I was pouring my soul out through my eyes, I was entranced until the glory was lost in clouds, the light in darkness. Alas! _wail_ for your illustration, Raymond!” and suddenly springing from him she fled up the stairs to her eyrie. He stood looking after her a moment, and then followed her leisurely. He found her in an excited stillness, gazing “too earnestly for seeing” out upon the bay. He went up to the window, and leaning his arm upon the flap of the escritoire, looked down at her, looked steadily at her—and spoke: “Hagar.” She started, turned, impatiently exclaiming, “Can I not escape your eye and voice anywhere, _anywhere_?” “Why _no_, love, of course not!” She was turning away—“Nay, pause. Hagar, how long have we been married?” “I do not exactly know, and I do not want to calculate now; it seems to me much longer than it really is—a long, long time!” “Something less than six weeks? Is not this a promising beginning?” Hagar suppressed a groan. He drew her away to a lounge, and they sat down. “Hagar, do you remember the night of our first meeting? when I was a youth and you an infant?” “_Do I not?_” “Your first words to me—it was at Sophie’s wedding party, you recollect—your first words to me formed a _jealous question_, and I knew that you were strong and fierce and jealous, though so little even for your years; and your first question was a _jealous_ question.” “You have a good memory.”