Page:Doughty--Mirrikh or A woman from Mars.djvu/246

 They spoke of peril threatening you, George, and that helped to influence me. We talked of parting, but it was no use, we couldn’t do it. She’s the dearest creature, George, but oh her weight is something awful! Tell me—tell me, what am I to do?”

I shook my head helplessly.

“Do you mean to say that”

“I mean to tell you just that; Merzilla, my wife, is inside of me at the present moment, George, as truly as I am in  my body myself. You grasp the situation; besides that you must remember her for Mirrikh said you saw her when you  were on Mars.”

“Do you refer to the girl who stood beside you when Mirrikh delivered his lecture before that great assemblage?”

“Yes, yes!” he cried joyfully. “Then you actually were there? If I had only known it! He said so afterward—but of course I couldn’t see you. Yes, George, that’s the girl. Tell me, what do you think of her? Isn’t she the most superb creature? Heavens! It is frightful to think of the situation we are in? Why, that bit of a smoke almost killed her, and as for the rice—well, just fancy offering her rice to  eat. Oh, if you had only staid longer on Mars!”

“Maurice,” I said firmly; “this thing must stop right here. We must come to an immediate understanding, for the Doctor may be back at any moment. Evidently you believe these strange assertions and you have done well to  tell me, for I am beginning to believe you have some foundation for them. At first they were so startling as to banish even memory; but memory has now returned, Maurice. My dear boy, I fear that I, of all men on this earth, alone  can comprehend you. In a situation somewhat resembling yours I have been myself.”

“You, George!”

“Yes; even I. Listen.”

I told him then of Hope; described even to the minutest details my own strange experiences after inhaling the gas. I concealed nothing and yet a moment before I would have  perished rather than disclose that which I had come to  cherish as the most holy of memories.”

His sense of relief was so manifest as he listened that I was forced, in spite of myself, to in some measure credit his  astounding claim.

“You have described it to a hair, George; and there’s no