"If that is so, you witching enchantress, why did you not lift me out of my torment long ago," he said. "But the worst is this. Just think what opportunities we have missed, what a long time we have wasted which might have been--Heaven." "Yet, even then, it may be better as things have turned out. My love-- my star--I could die with happiness at this moment. But," and then to the quiver of joy in her voice succeeded an intonation of sadness, "but--I suppose this world does not contain a more wicked woman than myself. Tell me, Eustace," she went on, checking whatever remark he might have been about to make, "tell me what you think. Shall we not one day be called upon to suffer in tears and bitterness for this entrancingly happy flood of sunshine upon our lives now?" "That is an odd question, and a thoroughly characteristic one," he replied slowly. "Unfortunately all the events of life, as well as the laws of Nature, go to bear out the opinions of the theologians. Everything must be paid for, and from this rule there is no escape. Everything, therefore, resolves itself into a mere question of price-- e.g., Is the debt incurred worth the huge compound interest likely to be exacted upon it in the far or near future? Now apply this to the present case. Do you follow me?" "Perfectly. If our love is wrong--wicked--we shall be called upon to suffer for it sooner or later?" "That is precisely my meaning. I will go further. The term `poetic justice' is, I firmly believe, more than a mere idiom. If we are doing wrong through love for each other we shall have to expiate it at some future time. We shall be made to suffer _through_ each other. Now, Eanswyth, what do you say to that?" "I say, amen. I say that the future can take care of itself, that I defy it--no--wait!--not that. But I say that if this delirious, entrancing happiness is wrong, I would rather brave torments a thousand-fold, than yield up one iota of it," she answered, her eyes beaming into his, and with a sort of proud, defiant ring in her voice, as if throwing down the gage to all power, human or divine, to come between them. "I say the same--my life!" was his reply. Thus the bargain was sealed--ratified. Thus was the glove hurled down for Fate to take up, if it would. The time was coming when she--when both--would remember those defiant, those deliberate words. Not to-day, however, should any forebodings of the Future be suffered to cloud the Present. They fled, all too quickly, those short, golden hours. They melted one by one, merged into the dim glories of the past. Would the time come when those blissful hours should be conjured forth by the strong yearnings of a breaking heart, conjured forth to be lived through again and again, in the day of black and hopeless despair, when to the radiant enchantment of the Present should have succeeded the woe of a never-ending and rayless night?