The girl drew back.

“Now,” she said seriously.  “Now I see what you want.  Old Hekt knows men, and she warned me.”

“Who is Hekt, and what can she know of me?”

“She told me that the time would come when a man would try to make friends with me.  He would look into my eyes, and if mine met his, then he would ask to kiss me.  But I must refuse him, because if I liked him to kiss me he would seize my soul, and take it from me, and I must wander, like the restless ghosts, which the abyss rejects, and the storm whirls before it, and the sea will not cover, and the sky will not receive, soulless to the end of my days.  Go away—­for I cannot refuse you the kiss, and yet I would not wander restless, and without a soul!”

“Is the old woman who told you that a good woman?” asked Rameri.

Uarda shook her head.

“She cannot be good,” cried the prince.  “For she has spoken a falsehood.  I will not seize your soul; I will give you mine to be yours, and you shall give me yours to be mine, and so we shall neither of us be poorer—­but both richer!”

“I should like to believe it,” said Uarda thoughtfully, “and I have thought the same kind of thing.  When I was strong, I often had to go late in the evening to fetch water from the landing-place where the great water-wheel stands.  Thousands of drops fall from the earthenware pails as it turns, and in each you can see the reflection of a moon, yet there is only one in the sky.  Then I thought to myself, so it must be with the love in our hearts.  We have but one heart, and yet we pour it out into other hearts without its losing in strength or in warmth.  I thought of my grandmother, of my father, of little Scherau, of the Gods, and of Pentaur.  Now I should like to give you a part of it too.”

“Only a part?” asked Rameri.

“Well, the whole will be reflected in you, you know,” said Uarda, “as the whole moon is reflected in each drop.”

“It shall!” cried the prince, clasping the trembling girl in his arms, and the two young souls were united in their first kiss.

“Now do go!” Uarda entreated.

“Let me stay a little while,” said Rameri.  “Sit down here by me on the bench in front of the house.  The hedge shelters us, and besides this valley is now deserted, and there are no passers by.”

“We are doing what is not right,” said Uarda.  “If it were right we should not want to hide ourselves.”

“Do you call that wrong which the priests perform in the Holy of Holies?” asked the prince.  “And yet it is concealed from all eyes.”

“How you can argue!” laughed Uarda.  “That shows you can write, and are one of his disciples.”

“His, his!” exclaimed Rameri.  “You mean Pentaur.  He was always the dearest to me of all my teachers, but it vexes me when you speak of him as if he were more to you than I and every one else.  The poet, you said, was one of the drops in which the moon of your soul finds a reflection—­and I will not divide it with many.”