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 The Duke reeled back. Horror had come into his eyes. "You do not love me!" he cried.

"Love you?" she retorted. "You?"

"You no longer love me. Why? Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"You loved me. Don't trifle with me. You came to me loving me with all your heart."

"How do you know?"

"Look in the glass." She went at his bidding. He followed her. "You see them?" he said, after a long pause. Zuleika nodded. The two pearls quivered to her nod.

"They were white when you came to me," he sighed. "They were white because you loved me. From them it was that I knew you loved me even as I loved you. But their old colours have come back to them. That is how I know that your love for me is dead."

Zuleika stood gazing pensively, twitching the two pearls between her fingers. Tears gathered in her eyes. She met the reflection of her lover's eyes, and her tears brimmed over. She buried her face in her hands, and sobbed like a child.

Like a child's, her sobbing ceased quite suddenly. She groped for her handkerchief, angrily dried her eyes, and straightened and smoothed herself.

"Now I'm going," she said.

"You came here of your own accord, because you loved me," said the Duke. And you shall