tly.

He had meant--ever since that sobering moment of guardianship in the
desert--to be very fair. He would not bind her with a word, a touch.
Not since that impulsive clasp of reunion in the palace had he
touched her in caress. With the reverence of his deep tenderness he
had served her in the tomb, meaning to deny his heart, to delay its
revelation, to wait upon her freedom and her youth....

Nobly he had resolved.... But now parting was upon him.

"It's not fair to you," he said desperately--and drew closer.

For at his blurted words her look had magically changed. The
defensive lightness was fled. A breathless wonder shone out at him
... a delicious shyness brushed with dancing expectation like the
gleam of a butterfly's wing.

No glamorous moonlight was about them now. No scented shadowy
garden.... But the enchantment was there, in the bare and dusty
room, with its grim old mummy cases, the enchantment and the very
flame of youth.

"Sweet, I'll be on the ship--I'll wait till you are ready," he vowed
and at her low murmur, "Ready--?" he gave back, "Ready--for love,"
with a boy's stammer over the first sound of that word between them.

"But what is this now," she said wondering, yet with a little elfish
gleam of laughter, "but--love?"

His last resolve went to the winds.

And as his arms closed about her, as he held to his heart all that
young loveliness that had been his despair and his delight, there
was more than joy in the confused tumult of his youth, there was
the supreme exultation of triumphant daring.

For he had opened the forbidden door; he had challenged the
adventure and overcome the risk.

He had won. And he would hold his winnings.

"Aimee," he whispered. "Aimee--Beloved."

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORTIETH DOOR***

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