“She will tell the king,” said Atossa aloud, when she was gone.  “I care not—­but I will keep the knife,” she added, laying the keen blade upon the table, amid the little instruments of her toilet.

But Nehushta ran fast through the corridors and halls till she came to her slaves who had waited for her at the entrance to the queen’s apartment.  Then she seemed to recollect herself, and slackened her pace, and went on to her own chambers.  But, her women saw her pale face, and whispered together as they cautiously followed her.

She was wretched beyond all words.  In a moment, her doubts and her fears had all been realised, and the stain of unfaithfulness had been washed from the memory of her lover.  But it was too late to repent her hastiness.  She had been married to Darius now for nearly three years, and Zoroaster was a man so changed that she would hardly have recognised him that evening, had she not known that he was in the palace.  He looked more like the aged Daniel whom he had buried at Ecbatana than like the lordly warrior of three years ago.  She wondered, as she thought of the sound of his voice in the, garden, how she could ever have doubted him, and the remembrance of his clear eyes was both bitter and sweet to her.

She lay upon her silken pillows and wept hot tears for him she had loved long ago, for him and for herself—­most of all for the pain she had made him suffer, for that bitter agony that had turned his young, fair locks to snowy white; she wept the tears for him that she could fancy he must have shed in those long years for her.  She buried her face and sobbed aloud, so that even the black fan-girl who stood waving the long palm-leaf over her in the dim light of the bedchamber—­even the poor black creature from the farther desert, whom her mistress did not half believe human, felt pity for the royal sorrow she saw, and took one hand from the fan to brush the tears from her small red eyes.

Nehushta’s heart was broken, and from that day none saw her smile.  In one hour the whole misery of all possible miseries came upon her, and bowed her to the ground, and crushed out the life and the light of her nature.  As she lay there, she longed to die, as she had never longed for anything while she lived, and she would have had small hesitation in killing the heart that beat with such agonising pain in her breast—­saving that one thought prevented her.  She cared not for revenge any more.  What was the life of that cold, cruel thing, the queen, worth, that by taking it, she could gain comfort?  But she felt and knew that, before she died, she must see Zoroaster once more, and tell him that she knew all the truth—­that she knew he had not deceived her, and that she implored his forgiveness for the wrong she had done him.  He would let her rest her head upon his breast and weep out her heartful of piteous sorrow once before she died.  And then—­the quiet stream of the Araxes flowed softly, cold and clear, among the rose-gardens below the palace.  The kindly water would take her to its bosom, beneath the summer’s moon, and the nightingales she loved would sing her a gentle good-night—­good-night for ever, while the cool wave flowed over her weary breast and aching head.