You will remember it always, Bebee ?" he murmured in his unconscious cruelty.

"I did not wish to spoil your cloudless pleasure, dear--for you care for me a little, do you not ?--so I came back to tell you only now, that I go away for a little while to-morrow." "Go away!" She trembled in his arms and turned cold as ice; a great terror and darkness fell upon her; she had never thought that he would ever go away.

He caressed her, and played with her as a boy may with a bird before he wrings its neck.
"You will come back ?" He kissed her: "Surely." "To-morrow ?" "Nay--not so soon." "In a week ?" "Hardly." "In a month, then ?" "Perhaps." "Before winter, anyway ?" He looked aside from the beseeching, tearful, candid eyes, and kissed her hair and her throat, and said, "Yes, dear--beyond a doubt." She clung to him, crying silently; he wished that women would not weep.
"Come, Bebee, listen," he said coaxingly, thinking to break the bitterness to her.

"This is not wise, and it gives me pain.

There is so much for you to do.