ll at Nehushta's feet, prostrate
upon the marble floor, and buried his face in the skirts of her mantle,
utterly over-mastered and broken down by the tumult of his passion.

Nehushta was not heartless. Of a certainty she would have pitied any one
in such distress and grief, even had the cause thereof come less near to
herself. But, in all the sudden emotion she felt, the pity, the fear,
and the self-reproach, there was joined a vague feeling that no man ever
spoke as this man, that no lover ever poured forth such abundant love
before, and in the dim suspicion of something greater than she had ever
known, her fear and her pity grew stronger, and strove with each other.

At first she could not speak, but she put forth her delicate hand and
laid it tenderly on the king's thick black hair, as gently as a mother
might soothe a passionate child; and he suffered it to rest there. And
presently she raised his head and laid it in her lap, and smoothed his
forehead with her soft fingers, and spoke to him.

"You make me very sad," she almost whispered. "I would that you might be
loved as you deserve love--that one more worthy than I might give you
all I cannot give."

He opened his dark eyes that were now dull and weary, and he looked up
to her face.

"There is none more worthy than you," he answered in low and broken
tones.

"Hush," she said gently, "there are many. Will you forgive me--and
forget me? Will you blot out this hour from your remembrance, and go
forth and do those great and noble deeds which you came into the world
to perform? There is none greater than you, none nobler, none more
generous."

Darius lifted his head from her knee, and sprang to his feet.

"I will do all things, but I will not forget," he said. "I will do the
great and the good deeds,--for you. I will be generous, for you; noble,
for you; while the world lasts my deeds shall endure; and with them, the
memory that they were done for you! Grant me only one little thing."

"Ask anything--everything," answered Nehushta, in troubled tones.

"Nehushta, you know how truly I love you--nay, I will not be mad again;
fear not! Tell me this--tell me that if you had not loved Zoroaster, you
would have loved me."

Nehushta blushed deeply and then turned pale. She rose to her feet, and
took the king's outstretched hands.

"Indeed, indeed, you are most worthy of love--Darius, I could have loved
you well." Her voice was very low, and the tears stood in he