Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/260

 knowing that you are safe. For though this be pity which you feel, I know it is nothing more.'

He would have passed by her, but still she held him and kept before him.

'You shall not go!' she cried. 'I will prevent you with my body. Pity, you say? Oh, Khaled! Is pity fierce? Is pity strong? Does pity burn like fire? You shall not go, I say!'

Then her hands grew cold upon his wrists, her cheeks burned and in her eyes there was a deep and gleaming light. All this Khaled felt and saw, while he heard the raging of the multitude without. His sight grew again uncertain. A third time the cool breath blew in his face.

'Yet it cannot be love,' he said uncertainly. Yet she heard him.

'Not love? Khaled, Khaled—my life, my breath, my soul—breath of my life, life of my spirit—oh, Khaled, you have never loved as I love you now!'

Her hands let go his wrists and clasped about his neck, and her face was hidden upon his shoulder while her breath came and went like the gusts of the burning storm in summer.

But as he held her, Khaled looked up and saw that the Angel of Allah was before him, having a smiling countenance and bearing in his hand a bright flame like the crescent moon.