She regarded me with an expression almost approaching to horror on her
gentle face, and for some moments made no reply. Then I remembered that
if I carried out that insane threat I should indeed lose Yoletta, and
the very thought of such a loss was more than I could endure; and for a
moment I almost hated the love which made me so helpless and
miserable--so powerless to oppose their stupid and barbarous practices.
It would have been sweet then to have felt free--free to fling them a
curse, and go away, shaking the dust of their house from my shoes,
supposing that any dust had adhered to them.

Then Edra began to speak again, and gravely and sorrowfully, but without
a touch of austerity in her tone or manner, censured me for making use
of such irrational language, and for allowing bitter, resentful thoughts
to enter my heart. But the despondence and sullen rage into which I had
been thrown made me proof even against the medicine of an admonition
imparted so gently, and, turning my face away, I stubbornly refused to
make any reply. For a while she was silent, but I misjudged her when I
imagined that she would now leave me, offended, to my own reflections.

"Do you not know that you are giving me pain?" she said at last, drawing
a little closer to me. "A little while ago you told me that you loved
me: has that feeling faded so soon, or do you take any pleasure in
wounding those you love?"

Her words, and, more than her words, her tender, pleading tone, pierced
me with compunction, and I could not resist. "Edra, my sweet sister, do
not imagine such a thing!" I said. "I would rather endure many
punishments than give you pain. My love for you cannot fade while I have
life and understanding. It is in me like greenness in the leaf--that
beautiful color which can only be changed by sere decay."