about your violence, and the wound you have
given her with the dagger!"

"Why did she tell me that you love her better than me?" she answered.

"She told you that?"

"Yes; and pretends that you swore to it. For my part, I do not want to
be loved like a slave. I have learnt from your books that women in your
country die when they are no longer loved. So if you have ceased to love
me, I wish to die! You have told me that I have a heart, a soul, and an
intellect, as they have, and that a woman's love makes her the equal of
her master. Do you mean to tell me, ungrateful man, that I do not love
you? Have I ever been jealous of Zouhra, or of Nazli? Why should this
Hadidje be everything in your eyes? If you do not want me any more," she
added, in a transport of grief, "say so, then; crop my hair, shave off
my eyebrows, and place me among the servants!"

As she said these words, she threw herself down at my feet, which she
hugged in a delirium of passion. Her tears coursed down her cheeks, and
upon my hands, which she covered with kisses. In her intense emotion her
voice betokened such bitter distress, that in spite of my determination
to punish her, I felt softened towards her. In presence of these
transports of a passion, which admitted no other motive but that of her
jealous rage, I saw that it was in vain for me to attempt to awaken her
conscience to the sense of her guilty conduct. She could neither hear
nor feel anything but the echo of her own grief. I loved her no longer,
and I loved Hadidje! These words returned to her lips over and over
again, amid sobs so heart-rending that, overcome by pity, and
forgetting my resolution, I could not help uttering a word of
protestation. I had hardly spoken, when she exclaimed--

"Is that true? Do you really love me? Will you swear it?"

I then understood the imprudence I had committed, but it was too late.
Kondje-Gul, passing at once from affliction to joy, had clasped me in
her arms. I wanted to remain stern; but how could I contend by any
arguments with such outbursts of mad jealousy? She would not listen to
me: she implored me with all the frenzied entreaties and reproaches of
which an unreasoning nature is capable. At one moment I believed that I
had at last brought her mind to realise the actual situation between us,
and the justice of my complaints against her conduct.

"Well, yes!" she said, "I have been very foolish. I ought to have thrown
myself at your feet three d