Before all things Bent-Anat loved air and light.  The curtains of her windows and doors were only closed when the position of the sun absolutely required it; while in Nefert’s rooms, from morning till evening, a dim twilight was maintained.

The princess went affectionately towards the charioteer’s wife, who bowed low before her at the threshold; she took her chin with her right hand, kissed her delicate narrow forehead, and said: 

“Sweet creature!  At last you have come uninvited to see lonely me!  It is the first time since our men went away to the war.  If Rameses’ daughter commands there is no escape; and you come; but of your own free will—­”

Nefert raised her large eyes, moist with tears, with an imploring look, and her glance was so pathetic that Bent-Anat interrupted herself, and taking both her hands, exclaimed: 

“Do you know who must have eyes exactly like yours?  I mean the Goddess from whose tears, when they fall on the earth, flowers spring.”

Nefert’s eyes fell and she blushed deeply.

“I wish,” she murmured, “that my eyes might close for ever, for I am very unhappy.”  And two large tears rolled down her cheeks.

“What has happened to you, my darling?” asked the princess sympathetically, and she drew her towards her, putting her arm round her like a sick child.

Nefert glanced anxiously at the chamberlain, and the ladies in waiting who had entered the room with her, and Bent-Anat understood the look; she requested her attendants to withdraw, and when she was alone with her sad little friend—­“Speak now,” she said.  “What saddens your heart? how comes this melancholy expression on your dear baby face?  Tell me, and I will comfort you, and you shall be my bright thoughtless plaything once more.”

“Thy plaything!” answered Nefert, and a flash of displeasure sparkled in her eyes.  “Thou art right to call me so, for I deserve no better name.  I have submitted all my life to be nothing but the plaything of others.”

“But, Nefert, I do not know you again,” cried Bent-Anat.  “Is this my gentle amiable dreamer?”

“That is the word I wanted,” said Nefert in a low tone.  “I slept, and dreamed, and dreamed on—­till Mena awoke me; and when he left me I went to sleep again, and for two whole years I have lain dreaming; but to-day I have been torn from my dreams so suddenly and roughly, that I shall never find any rest again.”

While she spoke, heavy tears fell slowly one after another over her cheeks.

Bent-Anat felt what she saw and heard as deeply as if Nefert were her own suffering child.  She lovingly drew the young wife down by her side on the divan, and insisted on Nefert’s letting her know all that troubled her spirit.