“Yet I may, but I will not!  To live the prey of so many memories, the fount of an undying shame that night by night, as I lie sleepless, shall well afresh from my sorrow-stricken heart!—­to live torn by a love I cannot lose!—­to stand alone like some storm-twisted tree, and, sighing day by day to the winds of heaven, gaze upon the desert of my life, while I wait the lingering lightning’s stroke—­nay, that will not I, Harmachis!  I had died long since, but I lived on to serve thee; now no more thou needest me, and I go.  Oh, fare thee well!—­for ever fare thee well!  For not again shall I look again upon thy face, and there I go thou goest not!  For thou dost not love me who still dost love that queenly woman thou hast hounded to the death!  Her thou shalt never win, and I thee shall never win, and this is the bitter end of Fate!  See, Harmachis:  I ask one boon before I go and for all time become naught to thee but a memory of shame.  Tell me that thou dost forgive me so far as thine is to forgive, and in token thereof kiss me—­with no lover’s kiss, but kiss me on the brow, and bid me pass in peace.”

And she drew near to me with arms outstretched and pitiful trembling lips and gazed upon my face.

“Charmion,” I answered, “we are free to act for good or evil, and yet methinks there is a Fate above our fate, that, blowing from some strange shore, compels our little sails of purpose, set them as we will, and drives us to destruction.  I forgive thee, Charmion, as I trust in turn to be forgiven, and by this kiss, the first and the last, I seal our peace.”  And with my lips I touched her brow.

She spoke no more; only for a little while she stood gazing on me with sad eyes.  Then she lifted the goblet, and said: 

“Royal Harmachis, in this deadly cup I pledge thee!  Would that I had drunk of it ere ever I looked upon thy face!  Pharaoh, who, thy sins outworn, yet shalt rule in perfect peace o’er worlds I may not tread, who yet shalt sway a kinglier sceptre than that I robbed thee of, for ever, fare thee well!”

She drank, cast down the cup, and for a moment stood with the wide eyes of one who looks for Death.  Then He came, and Charmion the Egyptian fell prone upon the floor, dead.  And for a moment more I stood alone with the dead.

I crept to the side of Cleopatra, and, now that none were left to see, I sat down on the bed and laid her head upon my knee, as once before it had been laid in that night of sacrilege beneath the shadow of the everlasting pyramid.  Then I kissed her chill brow and went from the House of Death—­avenged, but sorely smitten with despair!

“Physician,” said the officer of the Guard as I went through the gates, “what passes yonder in the Monument?  Methought I heard the sounds of death.”

“Naught passes—­all hath passed,” I made reply, and went.

And as I went in the darkness I heard the sound of voices and the running of the feet of Caesar’s messengers.