y enemies, to
hearken to their slanderous tongues, to credit the base falsehoods about
me which they have poured into your ears; and now you have the assurance
to come to me with the purpose of telling me that I am so utterly vile
that even you, false and craven that you are, will no longer remain my
guest, from fear of contamination!"

"I don't quite know how you came by your information, unless it was by
means of your accursed magic," I said, "but in the main you are right.
There are one or two errors with regard to detail, such, for example, as
your reference to the `falsehoods' told me about you by Anuti and his
friends, and also with regard to my reason for quitting the palace.
But, after all, these discrepancies are really of no moment, and may be
allowed to pass. That which is of moment is the fact that I cannot
possibly remain any longer the guest of a woman who has been guilty of
such crimes as you have perpetrated, nor can I submit to the degradation
of retaining any of the gifts which I have accepted from you. I shall
leave them all in my rooms when I presently quit them; and my regret at
abandoning them will be much less than that which I shall always feel
since it has been my misfortune to have been brought into contact with
yourself, and thus to have learned beyond question that such women
sometimes actually exist."

"Oh, Chia'gnosi, you are cruel, bitterly cruel and unjust to say such
things to me!" she cried; and then, to my utter consternation, she burst
into a perfect passion of weeping, and again I felt my heart insidiously
softening and warming toward her, she looked so utterly woebegone, so
terribly helpless and friendless. But the moment that I became
conscious of the feeling I brought my will power to bear and
determinedly repressed it; although I confess that I never in my life
had a more difficult task than that which I battled with while Bimbane
proceeded to explain tearfully that although she had undoubtedly done
those deeds with which Anuti and his friends charged; her, she had been
compelled to do them in the interests of good government and for reasons
of state, and that if I would only listen to her explanation I would see
that they were capable of a very different interpretation from that put
upon them by her enemies.

And I listened--I will do myself the justice to say that I listened
patiently to the woman's attempt to exculpate herself by proving that
her crimes were really not c