“I need no note, Prince,” I answered; “every word is burnt upon my mind as a hot iron burns a tablet of wood.  With reason too, since now her Highness will hate me for all her life.”

“Much better so, Ana, than that she should pretend to love you, which she never would have done while you are my friend.  Women oftimes respect those whom they hate and even will advance them because of policy, but let those whom they pretend to love beware.  The time may come when you will yet be Userti’s most trusted councillor.”

Now here I, Ana the Scribe, will state that in after days, when this same queen was the wife of Pharaoh Saptah, I did, as it chanced, become her most trusted councillor.  Moreover, in those times, yes, and even in the hour of her death, she swore from the moment her eyes first fell on me she had known me to be true-hearted and held me in esteem as no self-seeker.  More, I think she believed what she said, having forgotten that once she looked upon me as her enemy.  This indeed I never was, who always held her in high regard and honour as a great lady who loved her country, though one who sometimes was not wise.  But as I could not foresee these things on that night of long ago, I only stared at the Prince and said: 

“Oh! why did you not allow me to depart as your Highness said I might at the beginning?  Soon or late my head will pay the price of this night’s work.”

“Then she must take mine with it.  Listen, Ana.  I kept you here, not to vex the Princess or you, but for a good reason.  You know that it is the custom of the royal dynasties of Egypt for kings, or those who will be kings, to wed their near kin in order that the blood may remain the purer.”

“Yes, Prince, and not only among those who are royal.  Still, I think it an evil custom.”

“As I do, since the race wherein it is practised grows ever weaker in body and in mind; which is why, perhaps, my father is not what his father was and I am not what my father is.”

“Also, Prince, it is hard to mingle the love of the sister and of the wife.”

“Very hard, Ana; so hard that when it is attempted both are apt to vanish.  Well, our mothers having been true royal wives, though hers died before mine was wedded by my father, Pharaoh desires that I should marry my half-sister, Userti, and what is worse, she desires it also.  Moreover, the people, who fear trouble ahead in Egypt if we, who alone are left of the true royal race born of queens, remain apart and she takes another lord, or I take another wife, demand that it should be brought about, since they believe that whoever calls Userti the Strong his spouse will one day rule the land.”

“Why does the Princess wish it—­that she may be a queen?”

“Yes, Ana, though were she to wed my cousin, Amenmeses, the son of Pharaoh’s elder brother Khaemuas, she might still be a queen, if I chose to stand aside as I would not be loth to do.”