“I dwelt in Egypt also, and there, to be rid of men who wearied me with their sighs and importunities, also to acquire more wisdom of which she was the mistress, I entered the service of the goddess Isis, Queen of Heaven, vowing to remain virgin for ever.  Soon I became her high-priestess and in her most sacred shrines upon the Nile, I communed with the goddess and shared her power, since from me her daughter, she withheld none of her secrets.  So it came about that though Pharaohs held the sceptre, it was I who ruled Egypt and brought it and Sidon to their fall, it matters not how or why, as it was fated that I must do.  Yes, kings would come to seek counsel from me where I sat throned, dressed in the garb of Isis and breathing out her power.  Yet, my task accomplished, of it all I grew weary, as men will surely do of the heavens that they preach, should they chance to find them.”

I wondered what this “task” might be, but only asked, “Why?”

“Because in their pictured heaven all things lie to their hands and man, being man, cannot be happy without struggle, and woman, being woman, without victory over others.  What is cheaply bought, or given, has no value, Allan; to be enjoyed, it must first be won.  But I bade you not to break my thought.”

I asked pardon and she went on,

“Then it was that the shadow of the curse of Aphrodite fell upon me, yes, and of the curse of Isis also, so that these twin maledictions have made me what I am, a lost soul dwelling in the wilderness waiting the fulfilment of a fate whereof I know not the end.  For though I have all wisdom, all knowledge of the Past and much power together with the gift of life and beauty, the future is as dark to me as night without its moon and stars.

“Hearken, this chanced to me.  Though it be to my shame I tell it you that all may be clear.  At a temple of Isis on the Nile where I ruled, there was a certain priest, a Greek by birth, vowed like myself to the service of the goddess and therefore to wed none but her, the goddess herself—­that is, in the spirit.  He was named Kallikrates, a man of courage and of beauty, such an one as those Greeks carved in the statues of their god Apollo.  Never, I think, was a man more beautiful in face and form, though in soul he was not great, as often happens to men who have all else, and well-nigh always happens to women, save myself and perhaps one or two others that history tells of, doubtless magnifying their fabled charms.

“The Pharaoh of that day, the last of the native blood, him whom the Persians drove to doom, had a daughter, the Princess of Egypt, Amenartas by name, a fair woman in her fashion, though somewhat swarthy.  In her youth this Amenartas became enamoured of Kallikrates and he of her, when he was a captain of the Grecian Mercenaries at Pharaoh’s Court.  Indeed, she brought blood upon his hands because of her, wherefore he fled to Isis for forgiveness and for peace.  Thither in after time she followed him and again urged her love.