"Oh, yes! Very lonely! I never knew such loneliness before!" And the great brown eyes again took on a melancholy glow, which brightened into a happy luster as she looked up at me confidently and reassuringly. "Then let's neither of us be lonely again!" I entreated. And forgetting my spade and shovel and the half-tilled field, I drew her with me into the seclusion of the woods, and sat down with her by a bed of freshly uncurling ferns beneath the shaded bole of a great oak. "Remember, Yasma," I said, while I held both her hands and she peered at me out of eyes large with emotion, "you made me a promise about the spring. I asked you a question--the most important question any human being can ask another--and you did not give me a direct answer, but promised you would let me know when the leaves were again sprouting on the trees. That time has come now, and I am anxious for my answer, because I have had long, so very long to wait." Again I noticed a constraint about her manner. She hesitated before the first words came; then spoke tremblingly and with eyes downcast. "I know that you have had long to wait, and I do not want to keep you in suspense! I wish I could answer you now, answer outright, so that there would never be another question--but oh, I cannot!--not yet, not yet! Please don't think I want to cause you pain, for there's no one on earth I want less to hurt! Please!"--And she held out her hands imploringly, and her fingers twitched, and deep agitated streams of red coursed to her cheeks. "I know you don't want to hurt me--" I assured her. But she halted me with a passionate outburst. "All I know is that I love you, love you, love you!" she broke out, with the fury of a vehement wild thing; and for a moment we were again clasped in a tight embrace. "But if you love me, Yasma," I pleaded, when her emotion had nearly spent itself, "why treat me so oddly? Why not be perfectly frank? I love you too, Yasma. Why not say you will be my wife? For I want you with me always, always! Oh, I'd gladly live with you here in Sobul--but if we could we'd go away, far, far away, to my own land, and see things you never saw in your strangest dreams! What do you say, Yasma?" Yasma said nothing at all. She sat staring straight ahead, her fingers folding and unfolding over some dead twigs, her lips drawn into rigid lines that contrasted strangely with her moist eyes and cheeks. "You promised that in the spring you would tell me," I reminded her, gently. I do not know what there was in these words to arouse her to frenzy. Abruptly she sprang to her feet, all trace of composure gone; her eyes blazed with unaccountable fires as she hurled forth her answer. "Very well then, I will tell you! I cannot say yes to you, and I cannot say no--I cannot, cannot! Go see my father, Abthar, as soon as he returns--he will tell you! Go see him--and Hamul-Kammesh, the soothsayer." "Why Hamul-Kammesh?"