Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/311

 still for a moment, for I would look at thee! How beautiful thou art! and how thy presence doth fill the temple of Isis with a radiance which is almost divine!"

Obedient to his wish, she stood quite still, her dainty form against the ghost-like whiteness of the marble pillars, on which the rapidly sinking moon threw its last brilliant rays. Something in his look, however, must have made her move, for she turned away. "Dost wonder why I am here?" she asked.

"No! I hardly dare believe that thou art real, that thou art not an enchanting dream, with which Isis thought to soothe my aching senses. Wilt speak to me again?"

"I would tell thee why I came," she said.

"Nay! not that," he pleaded. "What care I, so long as thou art here, and I can look at thee?"

"Nay! but thou must know," she said, with a half-merry, half-nervous little laugh. "Hast heard, oh, son of Ra, that in Kamt we who are maidens deem it the luckiest thing on earth to pluck the flowers from out the canopy which sheltered the heads of the bride and bridegroom, if they come of royal blood? The posy thus made brings to the owner lasting happiness. And so, to-night, while Tanis is mad with joy, I crept out of my palace, and came to the temple of Isis, to twine the nosegay, and having twined it, give it thee."

I gazed and wondered; little did I understand what the strange girl intended when she came alone to see Hugh in his solitude. A wild hope was in my heart that she had come to warn, and an earnest prayer that he might listen. He did not speak. I fancy he would not trust himself to say much, but when she so daintily expressed her desire for his happiness, he raised both her small hands to his lips. She withdrew them quickly, and said: