did not answer. Her fear outdid her anger, and she stooped her
pride.

'Only be kind and true, and let me go,' she implored, and knelt low as
he. 'I let you take my secret, and you turn it against me treacherously.
You plan a shameful snare, you, you, whom I counted true as the sun. To
you, a bold, graceless stranger, I granted life at the first; to you I
gave the liberty of my dearest haunt. Be just, and leave me free in my
own. Have pity, and let me go. Woe and horror are coming upon me to take
me, awake and astray from the comfort of the sea.' She moaned and sighed
piteously.

His tears fell like rain for grief of his doings, for bitter grief that
he might not comfort her.

Because of a base alloy that had altered sacred love he had to fear. He
turned away his head, panting and shaking, for pain and thirst made
almost unendurable a temptation to stretch out his hand to hers, by the
magic of her touch to lose himself till death in a blissful swoon.

Her wail had in it the note of a deserted child and of a desolate woman.

'I am crying to you for pity and help, and you turn away; I, who in the
sea am regnant. But late you cried to me when no mercy and pardon were
due, and I let you live. And if then I judged you unheard and wrongly,
and if I condemned a breach of faith over harshly, here kneeling I pray
you to forgive--I, who never bid vainly, never ask vainly, of any living
creature but of you.'

Christian only was weeping; Diadyomene shed no tear, though her voice
quivered piteously.

'Ah, my sea, my sea! Hark how it moans to me, and cannot reach me! My
birds fail me, nestling afar--that you considered when you came by
night. Undo, undo your cruel work, and I will reproach you never.'

His silence appalled her. 'Why should you do this?' she cried. 'What
would you have of me? A ransom? Name it. The wealth of the sea is mine to
give; the magic of the sea is mine. To all seas, to all sea-creatures,
you shall bear a charmed life henceforward, only let me go.'

He sobbed, 'But I die, I die!' but so brokenly that the words failed at
her ears.

'Hear me,' she said; 'I make no reservation. Ask what you will, and
nothing, nothing I can grant will I refuse--only quickly let me go.'

She was crouched before him, with her face downward and hidden, as she
moaned, and moaned surrender. Presently she half lifted, and her voice
was at a lovely break between grief and gladness.

'Fool, dear ignorant fool, Diadyomenos,