hear the nightingale trill in the
dark thickets. Those are his own words, and though it angers you,
Grandmother, they are true."

"Until the secrecy is over, and the sun shines upon misery," the
sorceress answered in her faltering speech, with menacing severity.

"And beneath the tempter's roof you enjoyed the lauded secret love until
the cock roused you?"

"No," replied Ledscha firmly. "Did I ever tell you a lie, that you look
at me so incredulously?"

"Incredulously?" replied the old woman in protest. "I only trembled at
the danger into which you plunged."

"There could be no greater peril," the girl admitted. "I foresaw it
clearly enough, and yet--this is the most terrible part of it--yet my
feet moved as if obeying a will of their own, instead of mine, and when
I crossed his threshold, resistance was silenced, for I was received
like a princess. The lofty, spacious apartment was brilliantly
illuminated, and the door was garlanded with flowers.

"It was magnificent! Then, in a manner as respectful as if welcoming an
illustrious guest, he invited me to take my place opposite to him, that
he might form a goddess after my model. This was the highest flattery of
all, and I willingly assumed the position he directed, but he looked
at me from every side, with sparkling eyes, and asked me to let down my
hair and remove the veil from the back of my head. Then--need I assure
you of it?--my blood boiled with righteous indignation; but instead of
being ashamed of the outrage, he raised his hand to my head and pulled
the veil. Resentment and wrath suddenly flamed in my soul, and before he
could detain me I had left the room. In spite of his representations and
entreaties, I did not enter it again."

"Yet," asked the sorceress in perplexity, "you once more obeyed his
summons?"

"Yesterday also I could not help it," Ledscha answered softly.

"Fool!" cried Tabus indignantly, but the girl exclaimed, in a tone of
sincere shame: "You do well to call me that. Perhaps I deserve still
harsher names, for, in spite of the sternness with which I forbade him
ever to remind me of the studio by even a single word, I soon listened
to him willingly when he besought me, if I really loved him, not to
refuse what would make him happy. If I allowed him to model my figure,
his renown and greatness would be secured. And how clearly he made me
understand this! I could not help believing it, and at last promised
that, in spite of my father an