chamber and busied myself with the instruments of my art, for, stranger,
I build the houses of gods and kings.

"Presently, as I sat, there came a knocking at the door, and a woman
entered wrapped in a heavy cloak. She put aside the cloak, and before me
was Meriamun in all her bridal robes.

"'Heed me not, Rei,' she said, 'I am yet free for an hour; and I would
watch thee at thy labour. Nay, it is my humour; gainsay me not, for I
love well to look on that wrinkled face of thine, scored by the cunning
chisel of thy knowledge and thy years. So from a child have I watched
thee tracing the shapes of mighty temples that shall endure when
ourselves, and perchance the very Gods we worship, have long since
ceased to be. Ah, Rei, thou wise man, thine is the better part, for thou
buildest in cold enduring stone and attirest thy walls as thy fancy bids
thee. But I--I build in the dust of human hearts, and my will is written
in their dust. When I am dead, raise me a tomb more beautiful than ever
has been known, and write upon the portal, _Here, in the last temple of
her pride, dwells that tired builder, Meriamun, the Queen_.'

"Thus she talked wildly in words with little reason.

"'Nay, speak not so,' I said, 'for is it not thy bridal night? What dost
thou here at such a time?'

"'What do I here? Surely I come to be a child again! See, Rei, in all
wide Khem there is no woman so shamed, so lost, so utterly undone as is
to-night the Royal Meriamun, whom thou lovest. I am lower than she who
plies the street for bread, for the loftier the spirit the greater is
the fall. I am sold into shame, and power is my price. Oh, cursed be the