--you are dogging me--hunting me
down--why--tell me why? What harm have I done you?--tell me?"

Her eyes, which were shining strangely in the quickly falling night,
swept the man before her from head to foot, and she instinctively threw
out her hands and took another step backwards as she realised at last
his extraordinary beauty.

"Why is the mem-sahib _afraid_? What has her servant done to cause
trouble to her soul? He meant but to lighten her load, and make smooth
her path."

Leonie, with the desire common among women to hide the tell-tale
expression of their faces by the movement of their hands, knelt and
began fiddling among the tea things.

"Sit down," she said abruptly, pointing to-the ground on the other side
of the earthy tea-table, "and tell me everything."

"Nay, mem-sahib! A humble native may not sit in the presence of a
white woman."

Leonie lifted her head.

"Sit down," she said simply.

And there in the heart of the jungle, by the side of the fire that had
been lighted to scare off any animal, they sat, those two splendid
specimens of two splendid races divided by custom and colour, while he
told her the strange story of the night on which they had both been
dedicated to the Goddess of Destruction, and the happenings thereafter.

"Do you mean to tell me that you willed me to come to you in the museum
that day in London?"

He looked straight into her perplexed eyes as he answered slowly:

"I felt that if I could draw you through the ebb and flow and the
floods of London traffic, I could do as I would with you on the plains
of India. I did not know you--_then_!"

"And the priest has made me come to the temple--against my will?"

"Even so."

"And what is to happen to me there to-night?"

"A danger threatens you, beautiful white woman, a great danger
threatens you from which I alone can save you, yea! and will in spite
of all the gods!"

"_You_ will save _me_--_you_--and why?"

"Because I love you!"

The words were out, and Leonie, springing to her feet, drew back as the
man rose and stood motionless in the dancing shadows thrown by the fire.

"What do you mean? Oh, how dare you----"

"How dare I--_dare_ I--tell you that I love you and want you for wife?
Why should I not love you from your beautiful head to your perfect
feet? Why should you not be my wife? Because I am what you call
_black_? because of this colouring of my skin which, outside my own
land, damns me to eternit