"Happy? How can we be?" she lamented as her moist eyes stared at me with unfathomable sadness. "You are not as I--you cannot go with me each year when the birds fly south." For a moment I did not reply. I had the curious impression of being like the hero of some old fairy tale, a man wedded to a swallow or a wild duck in human form. "If I could not go with you," I entreated, though I felt the hopelessness of my own words, "why could you not stay here? Surely, if we were married, you might remain." "Oh, I would if I could," she cried, clasping her hands together fervently, and peering in despair toward the remote figure of Yulada. "I would if I could!" And she bent her head low, and her clenched fists hid her eyes, and her whole slender form shuddered. "Yasma!" I murmured, with an echo of her own emotion, as I took her into my arms. But she broke away from me savagely. "No, no, you must not!" she protested, her eyes gleaming and angry, her flushed cheeks newly wet. "But why not? Why--" "Because you and I are not the same! You do not know, you do not know what it is to hear the call of Yulada, to feel the fire burning, thundering in your veins, forcing you away when the leaves turn red, forcing you away, over the mountains, far, far away!" "I do not know, Yasma, but could I not learn?" "You could not learn! Once I hoped so, but I do not now! Can the bird raised in a cage learn to travel in the skies? You could not learn! It is too late! Each year I must go away, but always you must stay here!" "Even so, Yasma, let us not be sad. I would have you six months each year, and that would be far, far better than not to have you at all." "So you say," she murmured, looking up at me with wide, yearning eyes. "So you say now. But when the time came for me to leave, would you be contented? Rather, would you not be the most miserable man in the world?" "But why should I be miserable? Would I not know you were coming back? Is it so terrible there where you go in the winter?" "No, it is not terrible. It is beautiful." "Then for your sake, I would reconcile myself. If you were happy, why should I not be?" "Because you are not made that way! No, you could not be happy, my friend," she continued, staring at me with a melancholy smile. "And perfectly dreadful things might happen." Long, long afterwards, when it was too late for anything but memories, I was to recall those words. But at the moment I brushed them aside, for there in those peaceful woods, with the birds singing in the treetops and the clear warm skies above, I did not believe that anything dreadful could happen to Yasma or myself. "If I am willing to endure your absence," I appealed, "then what should be your objections? If those are your only reasons, let us prepare for the wedding!" "You know those are not my only reasons," she denied, almost reproachfully. "You know there are a hundred other reasons! Now that you have heard of the prophecies--"