"
"I do not need ask your forgiveness now, Dejah Thoris," I cried.
"You must know that my fault was of ignorance of your Barsoomian
customs. What I failed to do, through implicit belief that my
petition would be presumptuous and unwelcome, I do now, Dejah
Thoris; I ask you to be my wife, and by all the Virginian fighting
blood that flows in my veins you shall be."
"No, John Carter, it is useless," she cried, hopelessly,
"I may never be yours while Sab Than lives."
"You have sealed his death warrant, my princess--Sab Than dies."
"Nor that either," she hastened to explain. "I may not wed the man
who slays my husband, even in self-defense. It is custom. We are
ruled by custom upon Barsoom. It is useless, my friend. You must
bear the sorrow with me. That at least we may share in common.
That, and the memory of the brief days among the Tharks. You must
go now, nor ever see me again. Good-bye, my chieftain that was."
Disheartened and dejected, I withdrew from the room, but I was not
entirely discouraged, nor would I admit that Dejah Thoris was lost
to me until the ceremony had actually been performed.
As I wandered along the corridors, I was as absolutely lost in the
mazes of winding passageways as I had been before I discovered Dejah
Thoris' apartments.
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