ther's doors!"

"I saw him once," she said.

"And discovered not thyself! How cruelly thou hast used thyself,
Rachel. He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back."

"Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing--"

"Enough. I forgot. Come, let us go hence. Memphis and my father's
house await thee now."

"But I go to my people, even now," she answered, with averted face and
unready words.

Kenkenes whitened.

"And leave me?" he asked quietly.

"Think me not ungrateful," she said. "I have said no words of thanks
since there is none that can express a tithe of my great indebtedness
to thee."

"I have achieved nothing for thee. Not even have I won thy freedom. I
have failed. But shameless in mine undeserts, I am come to ask my
reward nevertheless." He was very near to her, his face full of
purpose and intensity, his voice of great restraint.

"That which once thou didst refuse to hear, thou hast known for long by
other proof than words," he went on. "Let me say it now. I love thee,
Rachel." Taking her cold hands he drew her back to him.

"Once I forbore," he continued, the persuasive calm in his manner
heightening, "because I knew it would hurt thee to say me 'nay,' I told
myself that I was brave, then, when the actual loss of thee was
distant. But thou wilt leave me now and my fortitude for thy sake is
gone. I am selfish because I love thee so. The extreme is reached. I
can withstand no more. Dost thou love me, Rachel?"

What need for him to wait for the word that gave assent? Was there not
eloquent testimony in her every feature and in every act of that hour
he had been with her? But his hands trembled, holding hers, till she
told him "aye."

"Then ask what thou wilt of me," he said, the restraint gone,
desperation taking its place. "I submit, so thou dost yield thyself to
me. Shall I pray thy prayers, kneel in thy shrines? Shall I go with
thee into slavery? Shall I learn thy tongue, turn my back on my
people, become one of Israel and hate Egypt? These things will I do,
and more, so I shall find thee all mine own when they are done."

But she freed her hands to cover her face and weep. Kenkenes sighed
from the very heaviness of his unhappiness.

"Thou shouldst hate me, if, to win thee, I bowed in pretense to thy
God," he said weakly.

Perhaps his words awakened a hope or perhaps they made her desperate.
Whatever the sensation, she raised her head and spo