"Eive," said Enva one day, "never salts her tears or paints her blushes." As soon as she caught my look of doubt-- "Have _I_ done wrong ?" she said, in a tone half of confidence, half of reproach.

"Punish me, then, Clasfempta, as you please--with Eveena's sandal." The repartee delighted those who had reason to desire any diversion.
The appeal to Eveena disarmed my unwilling and momentary distrust.
Eveena, however, answered by neither word nor look, and the party presently broke up.

Eive crept close to claim some silent atonement for unspoken suspicion, and a few minutes had elapsed before, to the evident alarm of several conscious culprits, I sought Eveena in her own chamber.
In spite of all deprecation, I insisted on the explanation she had evaded in public.

"I guess," I said, "as much as you can tell me about 'the four.' I have borne too long with those who have made your life that of a hunted therne, and rendered myself anxious and restless every day and hour that I have left you alone.

Unless you will deny that they have done so---- Well, then, I will have peace for you and for myself.