oble-hearted man has
inexorably condemned himself to a severity of rule that a dispassionate
judge of his life might deem very exaggerated, very unnecessary. It
is so natural for an honorable man to so dread that he should do a
dishonorable thing through self-interest or self-pity, that he may very
well overestimate the sacrifice required of him through what he deems
justice or generosity. May it not be so with you? I can conceive
no reason that can be strong enough to require of you such fearful
surrender of every hope, such utter abandonment of your own existence."

Her voice failed slightly over the last words; she could not think with
calmness of the destiny that he accepted. Involuntarily some prescience
of pain that would forever pursue her own life unless his were rescued
lent an intense earnestness, almost entreaty, to her argument. She did
not bear him love as yet; she had seen too little of him, too lately
only known him as her equal; but there were in her, stranger than she
knew, a pity, a tenderness, a regret, an honor for him that drew her
toward him with an indefinable attraction, and would sooner or later
warm and deepen into love. Already it was sufficient, though she deemed
it but compassion and friendship, to make her feel that an intolerable
weight would be heavy on her future if his should remain condemned
to this awful isolation and oblivion while she alone of all the world
should know and hold his secret.

He started from her side as he heard, and paced to and fro the narrow
limits of the tent like a caged animal. For the first time it grew a
belief to him, in his thoughts, that were he free, were he owner of his
heritage, he could rouse her heart from its long repose and make
her love him with the soft and passionate warmth of his dead Arab
mistress--a thing that had been so distant from her negligence and
her pride as warmth from the diamond or the crystal. He felt as if the
struggle would kill him. He had but to betray his brother, and he would
be unchained from his torture; he had but to break his word, and he
would be at liberty. All the temptation that had before beset him paled
and grew as naught beside this possibility of the possession of her love
which dawned upon him now.

She, knowing nothing of this which moved him, believed only that he
weighed her words in hesitation, and strove to turn the balance.

"Hear me," she said softly. "I do not bid you decide; I only bid you
confide in