Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/225

 Having delivered his mind thus freely, he strode to the door and tried it.

"No, boy, you don't," says I, and ran to the door the other side of the chamber that led into my dressing-room. Hastily I secured that also, and took the custody of the key.

"Now sit down," I did command him; "for I am to have a talk with you, my friend."

"I hope you will enjoy it," he said, "as it is to be the last."

"Surely," says I, "you cannot have the folly to be resolute in this? Would you yield your life up for a whim? Doth not your very soul turn dark at the thought of death—and such a death?"

I shivered as I spoke, and the lad turned paler.

"No," says he, "that is—at least," he dropped his tone, "I do not think about it."

"You will have to do," I answered, with the slow unction of a priest. "And you so full of lusty youth. Do I not see health sparkling in your eyes? The world must be lovely to you, I am certain. Your heart is fed on sunshine, and the singing of the birds is the only sound you hear. And are there no ambitions in you? Have you never dreamt of glory?"

He turned still paler at this speech, and a sort of grim joy took hold of me when I saw how my unaccustomed gravity was sinking in his mind.

"But you?" he said.

"I am not to be regarded. I have less to lose