them; there was no sound but of the cicala among the pomegranate leaves, and of the waves breaking up against the marble palace stairs; neither ever forgot that single hour when on one word the future hung. His eyes watched her longingly; he did not ask who she was, whence she came, for what reason she thus bade him go from her; he only remembered the glory of her loveliness, and the words in which she had said, "Go, and let us remain henceforth as strangers"
"Answer me, Madame," he said, briefly, "Do you, for yourself, command me to leave yon?"
"For myself? No. I cannot command you—it is only for your sake"
She paused. What was, in truth, in her thoughts it would have been impossible to put in clear words before him; she could not tell this man that what she feared for him was the love that he would feel for herself; and what she had said sufficed to give back to his heart its restless tumult of vague joys, sufficed to make the present hour in which he lived full of sweet intoxication.
"Then, since not for yourself you command, for myself I refuse to obey; refuse, now and for ever—come what will—ever to be to you again as a stranger."
