More than once, when summer was still in full blossom, I gave Yasma hints of my intention. But she either did not take them seriously, or pretended not to; she would brush my words aside with some attempted witticism, and did not appear to see the earnestness beneath my mild phrases. In my dread of casting some new shadow over us both, I delayed the crucial discussion as long as possible; delayed, indeed, until the hot days were over and the woods were again streaked with russet and crimson; delayed until after the Ibandru had held their annual firelight festival; delayed until the brisk winds brought promise of frost, and more than one of the tribesmen had gone on that journey which would not end until the new leaves were green. Even so, I still hesitated when the moment came to broach the subject; I realized only too well that one false move might precipitate a storm, and defeat my purpose. The time I selected was a calm, clear evening, when twilight was settling over the village and a red blaze still lingered above the western range. Arm in arm Yasma and I had been strolling among the fields; and as we returned slowly to our cabin, a silence fell between us, and her exuberant spirits of the afternoon disappeared. Looking down at her small figure, I observed how frail she actually was, and how dependent; and I thought I noted a sorrow in her eyes, a grief that had hovered there frequently of late and that seemed the very mark of the autumn season. But the sense of her weakness, the realization of something melancholy and even pathetic about her, served only to draw me closer to her, made it seem doubly sad that she should disappear each autumn into the unknown. And as I pondered the extraordinary fate that was hers and mine, words came to me spontaneously. "I want you to do me a favor, Yasma," I requested. "A very particular favor." "But you know that I'll do any favor you ask," she assented, turning to me with the startled air of one interrupted amid her reveries. "This is something out of the ordinary, Yasma. Something you may not wish to do. But I want it as badly as I've ever wanted anything in the whole world." "What can it be that you want so badly and yet think I wouldn't give?" "Do you promise?" I bargained, taking an unfair advantage. "Do you promise, Yasma?" "If it's anything within my power--and will bring you happiness--of course I'll promise!" "This will bring me the greatest happiness. When the last birds fly south, and the last of your people have gone away, I want you to stay here with me." Yasma's response was a half-suppressed little cry--though whether of pain or astonishment I could not tell. But she averted her head, and a long silence descended. In the gathering darkness it would have been impossible to distinguish the expression of her face; but I felt intuitively what a blow she had been dealt.