wound your gentle heart. I almost loved you!" He spoke the words
passionately, and for a moment she raised her eyes and looked at
him in something of fear as well as sorrow. "'Yes,' I said to my
self, 'this woman, so true and pure and fair, is a bride for a
king; and if I can win her--if!' Ah, there my musings stopped. But
I came to Egypt chiefly to meet you again, knowing that you and
your brother were in Cairo. How was I to know, how was I to guess
that this horrible thing would happen?"

Helen gazed at him wonderingly.

"What horrible thing?" she asked, falteringly, the rich color
coming and going on her face, and her heart beating violently as
she put the question.

His eyes flashed.

"This," he answered. "The close and pernicious enthralment of a
woman I never met till the night before last; a woman whose face
haunts me; a woman who drags me to her side with the force of a
magnet, there to grovel like a brain-sick fool and plead with her
for a love which I already know is poison to my soul! Helen,
Helen! You do not understand--you will never understand! Here, in
the very air I breathe, I fancy I can trace the perfume she shakes
from her garments as she moves; something indescribably
fascinating yet terrible attracts me to her; it is an evil
attraction, I know, but I cannot resist it. There is something
wicked in every man's nature; I am conscious enough that there is
something detestably wicked in mine, and I have not sufficient
goodness to overbalance it. And this woman,--this silent, gliding,