when my hour of tenderness is past, how I might deal with thee, didst thou live?  Thou dost die, they say—­those learned long-faced fools, who, if they let thee die, shall pay the price.  And where, then, shall we meet again when my last throw is thrown?  We shall be equal there, in the kingdom that Osiris rules.  A little time, a few years—­perhaps to-morrow—­and we shall meet; then, knowing all I am, how wilt thou greet me?  Nay, here, as there, still must thou worship me! for injuries cannot touch the immortality of such a love as thine.  Contempt alone, like acid, can eat away the love of noble hearts, and reveal the truth in its pitiful nakedness.  Thou must still cling to thee, Harmachis; for, whatever my sins, yet I am great and set above thy scorn.  Would that I could have loved thee as thou lovest me!  Almost I did so when thou slewest those guards; and yet—­not quite.

“What a fenced city is my heart, that none can take it, and, even when I throw the gates wide, no man may win its citadel!  Oh, to put away this loneliness and lose me in another’s soul!  Oh, for a year, a month, an hour to quite forget policy, peoples, and my pomp of place, and be but a loving woman!  Harmachis, fare thee well!  Go join great Julius whom thy art called up from death before me, and take Egypt’s greetings to him.  Ah well!  I fooled thee, and I fooled Caesar—­perchance before all is done Fate will find me, and myself I shall be fooled.  Harmachis, fare thee well!”

She turned to go, and as she turned I heard the sweep of another dress and the light fall of another woman’s foot.

“Ah! it is thou, Charmion.  Well, for all thy watching the man dies.”

“Ay,” she answered, in a voice thick with grief.  “Ay, O Queen, so the physicians say.  Forty hours has he lain in stupor so deep that at times his breath could barely lift this tiny feather’s weight, and hardly could my ear, placed against his breast, take notice of the rising of his heart.  I have watched him now for ten long days, watched him day and night, till my eyes stare wide with want of sleep, and for faintness I can scarce keep myself from falling.  And this is the end of all my labour!  The coward blow of that accursed Brennus has done its work, and Harmachis dies!”

“Love counts not its labour, Charmion, nor can it weight its tenderness on the scale of purchase.  That which it has it gives, and craves for more to give and give, till the soul’s infinity be drained.  Dear to thy heart are these heavy nights of watching; sweet to thy weary eyes is that sad sight of strength brought so low that it hangs upon thy weakness like a babe to its mother’s breast!  For, Charmion, thou dost love this man who loves thee not, and now that he is helpless thou canst pour thy passion forth over the unanswering darkness of his soul, and cheat thyself with dreams of what yet might be.”

“I love him not, as thou hast proof, O Queen!  How can I love one who would have slain thee, who art as my heart’s sister?  It is for pity that I nurse him.”