nd to you. There shall not be anything left in the whole world that you
desire, but I will give it to you. Am I not the king of the whole
earth--the king of all living things but you?"

Darius breathed savagely hard through his clenched teeth, and rising
suddenly, paced the pavement between Nehushta and the fountain. She was
silent still, overcome with a sort of terror at his words--words, every
one of which he was able to fulfil, if he so chose. Presently he stood
still before her.

"Said I not well, that I rave as a madman--that I speak as a fool
without understanding? What can I give you that you want? Or what thing
can I devise that you have need of? Have you not all that the world
holds for mortal woman and living man? Do you not love, and are you not
loved in return? Have you not all--all--all? Ah! woe is me that I am
lord over the nations, and have not a drop of the waters of peace
wherewith to quench the thirst of my tormented soul! Woe is me that I
rule the world and trample the whole earth beneath my feet, and cannot
have the one thing that all the earth holds which is good! Woe is me,
Nehushta, that you have cruelly stolen my peace from me, and I find it
not--nor shall find it for evermore!"

The strong dark man stood wringing his hands together; his face was pale
as the dead, his black eyes were blazing with a mad fire. Nehushta dared
not look on the tempest she had roused, but she trembled and clasped her
hands to her breast and looked down.

"Nay, you are right," he cried bitterly. "Answer me nothing, for you can
have nothing to answer! Is it your fault that I am mad? Or is it your
doing that I love you so? Has any one sinned in this? I have seen you--I
saw you for a brief moment standing in the door of your tent--and
seeing, I loved you, and love you, and shall love you till the heavens
are rolled together and the scroll of all death is full! There is
nothing, nothing that you can say or do. It is not your fault--it is not
your sin; but it is by you and through you that I am undone,--broken as
the tree in the storm of the mountains, burned up and parched as the
beast perishing in the sun of the desert for lack of water, torn asunder
and rent into pieces as the rope that breaks at the well! By you, and
for you, and through you, I am ruined and lost--lost--lost for ever in
the hell of my wretched greatness, in the immeasurable death of my own
horrible despair!"

With a wild movement of agony, Darius fe