t as
Nehushta went by? For her sake he had abandoned his brilliant life these
three years, to dwell in the desert, to grow so thin and miserable of
aspect that he looked like an old man. And his hair and beard were
white--she had heard that a man might turn white from sorrow in a day.
Was it grief that had so changed him? Grief to see her wedded to the
king before his eyes? His voice rang so true: "Ask her whom thou
hatest," he had said. In truth she would ask. It was all too
inexplicable, and the sudden thought that she had perhaps wronged him
three long years ago--even the possibility of the thought that seemed so
little possible to her yesterday--wrought strangely in her breast, and
terrified her. She would ask Atossa to her face whether Zoroaster had
loved her. She would tell how she had seen them together upon the
balcony, and heard Atossa's quick, hot words. She would threaten to tell
the king; and if the elder queen refused to answer truth, she would
indeed tell him and put her rival to a bitter shame.

She walked more quickly upon the smooth path, and her hands wrung each
other, and once she felt the haft of that wicked Indian knife she ever
wore. When she turned back and went up the broad steps of the palace,
the moon was rising above the far misty hills to eastward, and there
were lights beneath the columned portico. She paused and looked back
across the peaceful valley, and far down below, a solitary nightingale
called out a few melancholy notes, and then burst forth into glorious
song.

Nehushta turned again to go in, and there were tears in her dark eyes,
that had not stood there for many a long day. But she clasped her hands
together, and went forward between the crouching slaves, straight to
Atossa's apartment. It was not usual for any one to gain access to the
eider queen's inner chambers without first obtaining permission, from
Atossa herself, and Nehushta had never been there. They met rarely in
public, and spoke little, though each maintained the appearances of
courtesy; but Atossa's smile was the sweeter of the two. In private they
never saw each other; and the queen's slaves would perhaps have tried
to prevent Nehushta from entering, but her black eyes flashed upon them
in such dire wrath as she saw them before her, that they crouched away
and let her pass on unmolested.

Atossa sat, as ever at that hour in her toilet-chamber, surrounded by
her tirewomen. The room was larger than the one at Shush