rugged with a love-philtre! Yea, thou didst
sell Egypt and thy cause for the price of a wanton's kiss! Thou Sorrow
and thou Shame!" she went on, pointing her finger at me and lifting her
eyes to my face, "thou Scorn!--thou Outcast!--and thou Contempt! Deny
if it thou canst. Ay, shrink from me--knowing what thou art, well mayst
thou shrink! Crawl to Cleopatra's feet, and kiss her sandals till such
time as it pleases her to trample thee in thy kindred dirt; but from all
honest folk _shrink!_--_shrink!_"

My soul quivered beneath the lash of her bitter scorn and hate, but I
had no words to answer.

"How comes it," I said at last in a heavy voice, "that thou, too, art
not betrayed, but art still here to taunt me, thou who once didst
swear that thou didst love me? Being a woman, hast thou no pity for the
frailty of man?"

"My name was not on the lists," she said, dropping her dark eyes. "Here
is an opportunity: betray me also, Harmachis! Ay, it is because I once
loved thee--dost thou, indeed, remember it?--that I feel thy fall the
more. The shame of one whom we have loved must in some sort become our
shame, and must ever cling to us, because we blindly held a thing so
base close to our inmost heart. Art thou also, then, a fool? Wouldst
thou, fresh from thy royal wanton's arms, come to me for comfort--to
_me_ of all the world?"

"How know I," I said, "that it was not thou who, in thy jealous anger,
didst betray our plans? Charmion, long ago Sepa warned me against thee,
and of a truth now that I recall----"

"It is like a traitor," she broke in, reddening to her brow, "to think
that all are of his family, and hold a common mind! Nay, I betrayed thee
not; it was that poor knave, Paulus, whose heart failed him at the last,
and who is rightly served. Nor will I stay to hear thoughts so base.
Harmachis--royal no more!--Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, bids me say that
thou art free, and that she waits thee in the Alabaster Hall."

And shooting one swift glance through her long lashes she curtsied and
was gone.

So once more I came and went about the Court, though but sparingly, for
my heart was full of shame and terror, and on every face I feared to see
the scorn of those who knew me for what I was. But I saw nothing, for
all those who had knowledge of the plot had fled, and Charmion had
spoken no word, for her own sake. Also, Cleopatra had put it about that
I was innocent. But my guilt lay heavy on me, and made me thin and