his love for me would be forever buried beneath a mass of black misgivings.  The certainty of this conviction paralysed my will, and my arm dropped nervelessly at my side.  It would be a simple matter, I thought, to find some way of confiding my story to you and pledging you to explain everything to Darrow Sahib, after which I could die in peace, if not without regret.  But it was not so easy to communicate with you as I had expected.  Days passed before I had a chance to make the attempt, and the only result of it was to show me how closely I was watched.  If Ragobah were absent, there was always someone in his employ who made it his business to acquaint himself with my every movement.  I dare not take the time to tell you how I succeeded in obtaining this interview further than to say that I was able to win to my cause the man who bore my message to you—­a servant in whom Ragobah has the utmost confidence.  When my husband departed this morning Kandia was left in charge of me, and so your visit was made possible.

“You are now acquainted with the trust I would impose upon you:  swear to me, Moro, that you will make this explanation for me to John Darrow and to no other human being!  Swear it by the love you once said you bore me!” She sank back exhausted and awaited my response.  For a moment I dared not trust myself to speak, yet something must be said.  As I noted her impatience I replied:  “Lona, you have lifted a great weight from my heart and placed a lesser one upon it.  Forgive me that I have ever doubted you.  Even as you have been true to yourself, I swear by the love I still bear you to deliver your message to Darrow Sahib and to no other human being.  I shall commit your words at once to writing that nothing may be lost through the failure of my memory.”

She reached her hand out feebly to me, and never shall I forget the look of gratitude which accompanied its tremulous pressure as she murmured:  “After John, Moro, you are dearest.  I shall not try to thank you.  May the ineffable peace which you bring my aching heart return a thousand-fold into your own.  Farewell.  Ragobah may return at any moment.  Let us not needlessly imperil your safety.  Once more good-bye.  The dew-drop now may freely fall into the shining sea.”  Poor distraught child!  She had tried to adopt her lover’s religion without abandoning her own.  I bent over and kissed her.  It was my first and last kiss and she gave it with a sweet sadness, the memory of which, through all these years, has dwelt in the better part of me, like a fragrance in the vesture of the soul.  One long, lingering look and I departed, never to see again this woman I had so fondly, so hopelessly loved.

You now know the exact nature of the covenant I have felt constrained to violate.  I have told you her story in her own words.  I wrote it out immediately after my interview with her and have read it so many times, during the last twenty years, that I have committed it to memory.  The recollection of that last meeting, of her kiss and her grateful look has been throughout all these long, weary years the one verdant spot in the desert of my life.