Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/318

 the love of heaven take thy dear hands from off my cloak!"

"Thou wilt not leave me?"

"I must go, sweet. Remember I have sworn! wouldst make a coward of me? … Nay! thou hast all but succeeded … be satisfied and let me go!"

She took her hands from off his cloak, but came up close to him and whispered:

"See! I do not hold thee, and yet thou wilt not go … thou art free! and yet thou wilt stay … thou hast smelt the perfume of the white pansy, and thou wilt forget all … save that thou dost love me…."

"Neit-akrit!"

"Nay! thou dost entreat in vain…. Sweet, I would not have thee go! What is duty? what is the meaning of oath or pledge? Wouldst know why I came to-night? … I came because I knew that danger doth await thee outside this sacred temple.… I came because I knew that thou dost love me … and I trusted that that love would make thee forget the dawn, thy duty, thy pledged word, forget all, in order to remain beside Neit-akrit."

"Forget? Ay! I have forgotten but too long already. Neit-akrit, thou speakest of danger; to me there is but one, and that is that I might forget all—my manhood, my honour, my pledge, my word, might forget thy innocence, and remember only that thou art fair." "But that is all I would have thee remember," she whispered so softly that her voice hardly sounded above the murmur of the flower, which some stray current of air began gently to fan. "If I am fair it is because Isis hath made me so in order that thou shouldst love me! I am young, and I have waited for thee all these years because, although I knew it not, I wished that