“What is this?” she asked, vacantly, at last.

“I know not,” answered the king.  “I found you here—­lying upon the floor.  Are you hurt?” he asked tenderly.

“Hurt?  No—­yes, I am hurt—­hurt even to death,” she added suddenly.  “Oh, Darius, I would I could tell you!  Are you really my friend?”

She raised herself without his help and sat up.  The hot blood rushed back to her cheeks and her eyes regained their light.

“Can you doubt that I am your friend, your best friend?” asked the king.

Nehushta rose to her feet and paced the little hall in great emotion.  Her hands played nervously with the golden tassels of her mantle, her head-dress had fallen quite back upon her shoulders, and the masses of her hair were let loose.  From time to time she glanced at the king, who eyed her anxiously as he stood beside the fountain.

Presently she stopped before him, and very gravely fixed her eyes on him.

“I will tell you something,” she said, beginning in low tones.  “I will tell you this—­I cannot tell you all.  I have been horribly deceived, betrayed, made a sport of.  I cannot tell you how—­you will believe me, will you not?  This man I loved—­I love him not—­has cast me off as an old garment, as a thing of no price—­as a shoe that is worn out and that is not fit for his feet to tread upon.  I love him not—­I hate him—­oh, I love him not at all!”

Darius’s face grew dark and his teeth ground hard together, but he stood still, awaiting what she should say.  But Nehushta ceased, and suddenly she began again to walk up and down, putting her hand to her temples, as though in pain.  Once more she paused, and, in her great emotion laid her two hands upon the shoulder of the king, who trembled at her touch, as though a strong man had struck him.

“You said you loved me, once,” said Nehushta, in short, nervous tones, almost under her breath.  “Do you love me still?”

“Is it so long since I told you I loved you?” asked Darius, with a shade of bitterness.  “Ah! do not tempt me—­do not stir my sickness.  Love you?  Yea—­as the earth loves the sun—­as man never loved woman.  Love you?  Ay!  I love you, and I am the most miserable of men.”  He shook from head to foot with strong emotion, and the stern lines of his face darkened as he went on speaking.  “Yet, though I love you so, I cannot harm him,—­for my great oath’s sake I cannot—­yet for you, almost I could.  Ah Nehushta, Nehushta!” he cried passionately, “tempt me not!  Ask me not this, for you can almost make a liar of the Great King if you will!”

“I tempt you not,” answered the princess.  “I will not that you harm a hair of his head.  He is not worthy that you should lift the least of your fingers to slay him.  But this I tell you—­” she hesitated.  The king in his violent excitement, as though foreseeing what she would say, seized her hands and held them tightly while he gazed into her eyes.