what
happens to the man who is so mad as to love the Queen of Egypt?"

Tua considered this problem as though it were a riddle to which she was
seeking an answer.

"Who knows?" she replied at length in a low voice. "Perhaps it costs
him his life, or perhaps--perhaps he marries her and becomes Pharaoh of
Egypt. Much might depend on whether the queen chanced to care about such
a man."

Now Rames shook like a reed in the evening wind, and he looked at her
with glowing eyes.

"Tua," he whispered, "can it be possible--do you mean that I am welcome
to you, or are you but drawing me to shame and ruin?"

She made no answer to him in words, only with a certain grave
deliberation, laid down the little ivory sceptre that she held, and
suffering her troubled eyes to rest upon his eyes, bent forward and
stretched out her arms towards him.

"Yes, Rames," she murmured into his ear a minute later, "I am drawing
you to whatever may be found upon this breast of mine, love, or majesty,
or shame, or ruin, or the death of one or both of us, or all of them
together. Are you content to take the chances of this high game, Rames?"

"Ask it not, Tua. You know, you know!"

She kissed him on the lips, and all her heart and all her youth were in
that kiss. Then, gently enough, she pushed him from her, saying:

"Stand there, I would speak with you, and as I have said, the time is
short. Hearken to me, Rames, you are right; I know, as I have always
known, and as you would have known also had you been less foolish than
you are. You love me and I love you, for so it was decreed where souls
are made, and so it has been from the beginning and so it shall be to
the end. You, a gentleman of Egypt, love the Queen of Egypt, and she is
yours and no other man's. Such is the decree of him who caused us to
be born upon the same day, and to be nursed upon the same kind breast.
Well, after all, why not? If love brings death upon us, as well may
chance, at least the love will remain which is worth it all, and beyond
death there is something."

"Only this, Tua, I seek the woman not a throne, and alas! through me you
may be torn from your high place."

"The throne goes with the woman, Rames, they cannot be separated. But,
say, something comes over me; if that happened, if I were an outcast, a
wanderer, with nothing save this shape and soul of mine, and it were you
that sat upon a throne, would you still love me, Rames?"

"Why ask such questions?" he rep