weave and stitch as much
as you like; but as man and wife no one shall part us, and we will lead
a life such a life! The joys of Paradise shall be no better than a rap
on the skull with an olive-wood log in comparison!"

He tried to take her hand again, but she drew it away, saying in deep
confusion and without looking up: "No, Rustem. I was afraid yesterday
that it would come to this; but it can never, never be. I am
grateful--oh! so grateful; but no, it cannot be, and that must be the
end of it. I can never be your wife. Rustem."

"No?" he asked with a scowl, and the veins swelled in his low forehead.
"Then you have been making a fool of me!--as to the gratitude you talk
of...."

He stood up in hot excitement; she laid her hand on his arm, drew him
down on to the seat again, and ventured to steal an imploring look into
his eyes, which never could long flash with anger. Then she said:

"How you break out! I shall really and truly be very grieved to part
from you; cannot you see that I am fond of you? But indeed, indeed it
will never do, I--oh! if only I might go back, home, and with you. Yes,
with you, as your wife. What a proud and happy thought! And how gladly
would I work for us both--for I am very handy and hard-working, but..."

"But?" he repeated, and he put his big, sun-burnt face close to hers,
looking as if he could break her in pieces.

"But it cannot be, for your sake; it must not be, positively, certainly.
I will not make you so bad a return for all your kindness. What! have
you forgotten what I was, what I am? You, as a freeman, will soon have
a nice little estate at home, and may command respect and reverence from
all; but how different it would be if you had a wife like me at your
heels--if only from the fact that I was once a slave."

"That is the history of it all!" he interrupted, and his brow cleared.
"That is what is troubling your dear little soul! But do you not know
who and what I am? Have I not told you what a Masdakite is?

[Eutychius, Bishop of Alexandria thus describes the communistic
doctrine of Masdak: "God has given to men on earth that which is of
the earth to the end that it may be divided equally among them, and
that no more falls to the lot of one than another. And if one hath
more than is seemly of money or wives or slaves or movable goods, we
will take it from him to the end that he and the rest may be equal."]

We Masdakites believe, nay, we know, that al