they went, and left us face to face.

"Stand thou there," she said, lifting her eyes for the first time. "Come
not nigh me, Harmachis: I trust thee not. Perchance thou hast found
another dagger. Now, what hast thou to say? By what right didst thou
dare to break in upon my talk with the Roman?"

I felt the blood rush through me like a storm; bitterness and burning
anger took hold of my heart. "What hast _thou_ to say, Cleopatra?"
I answered boldly. "Where is thy vow, sworn on the dead heart of
Menkau-ra, the ever-living? Where now thy challenge to this Roman
Antony? Where thy oath that thou wouldest call me 'husband' in the face
of Egypt?" and I choked and ceased.

"Well doth it become Harmachis, who never was forsworn, to speak to me
of oaths!" she said in bitter mockery. "And yet, O thou most pure Priest
of Isis; and yet, O thou most faithful friend, who never didst betray
thy friends; and yet, O thou most steadfast, honourable, and upright
man, who never bartered thy birthright, thy country, and thy cause for
the price of a woman's passing love--by what token knowest thou that my
word is void?"

"I will not answer thy taunts, Cleopatra," I said, holding back my heart
as best I might, "for I have earned them all, though not from thee. By
this token, then, I know it. Thou goest to visit Antony; thou goest, as
said that Roman knave, 'tricked in thy best attire,' to feast with him
whom thou shouldst give to vultures for their feast. Perhaps, for
aught I know, thou art about to squander those treasures that thou hast
filched from the body of Menkau-ra, those treasures stored against the
need of Egypt, upon wanton revels which shall complete the shame of
Egypt. By these things, then, I know that thou art forsworn, and I, who,
loving thee, believed thee, tricked; and by this, also, that thou who
didst but yesternight swear to wed me, dost to-day cover me with taunts,
and even before that Roman put me to an open shame!"

"To wed thee? and I did swear to wed thee? Well, and what is marriage?
Is it the union of the heart, that bond beautiful as gossamer and than
gossamer more light, which binds soul to soul, as they float through the
dreamy night of passion, a bond to be, perchance, melted in the dews of
dawn? Or is it the iron link of enforced, unchanging union whereby if
sinks the one the other must be dragged beneath the sea of circumstance,
there, like a punished slave, to perish of unavoidable corruption?[*]
Marriage!