“Had not your own sorrow so utterly got the mastery over you to-day that you even refused to look at me?” she asked.  “In all that long hour when we were so near together, did you give me one glance?  You had forgotten me in the extremity of your grief!” she cried, scornfully.  “And now that the first torrent of your tears has dwindled to a little stream, you have time to remember me!  I thank my lord for the notice he deigns to give his handmaiden, but—­I need it not.  Well—­why are you here?”

Zoroaster stood up to his height and folded his arms deliberately, facing Nehushta, and he spoke calmly, though there was in his voice the dulness of a great and sudden pain.  He knew men well enough, but he knew little of women.

“There is a time to be sorrowful and a time for joy,” he said.  “There is a time for weeping and a time for the glances of love.  I did as I did, because when a man has a great grief for one dead and when he desires to show his sorrow in doing honour to one who has been as a father to him, it is not meet that other thoughts should be in his mind; not even those thoughts which are most dear to him and nearest to his heart.  Therefore I looked not at you when we were burying our master, and though I love you and in my heart look ever on your face, yet to-day my eyes were turned from you and I saw you not.  Wherefore are you angry with me?”

“I am not angry,” said Nehushta, “but think you love me little that you turn from me so easily.”  She looked down, and her face was quite hidden in the dark shadow.  Then Zoroaster put his arm about her neck and drew her to him, and, though she resisted a little, in a moment her head rested on his breast.  Then she struggled again.

“Nay, let me go, for you do not love me!” she said, half in a whisper.  But he held her close.

“Nay, but you shall not go, for I do love you,” he answered tenderly.

“Shall not?” cried she, turning in his arms, half fiercely; then her voice sank and thrilled softly.  “Say that I will not,” she murmured, and her arms went round him and pressed him passionately to her.  “Oh, my beloved, why do you ever seem so cold? so cold—­when I so love you?”

“I am not cold,” he said fondly, “and I love you beyond all power of words to tell.  Said we not that you had your way and I mine?  Who shall tell us which is the sweeter music when both unite in so grand a harmony?  Only doubt not, for doubting is as the drop that falls from the eaves upon the marble corner-stone, and, by ever falling, wears furrows in the stone that the whole ocean could not soften.”

“I will not doubt any more,” said Nehushta suddenly, “only—­can you not love me a little sometimes in the way I do you?  It is so sweet,—­my way of loving.”

“Indeed I will try, for it is very sweet,” answered Zoroaster, and, bending down, he kissed her lips.  Far off from the tower the melancholy cry of an owl echoed sadly across the gardens, and a cool damp breeze sprang up suddenly, from the east.  Nehushta shuddered slightly, and drew her cloak about her.