"
"I love him not, as thou hast proof, O Queen! How can I love one who
would have slain thee, who art as my heart's sister? It is for pity that
I nurse him."
She laughed a little as she answered, "Pity is love's own twin,
Charmion. Wondrous wayward are the paths of woman's love, and thou hast
shown thine strangely, that I know. But the more high the love, the
deeper the gulf whereinto it can fall--ay, and thence soar again to
heaven, once more to fall! Poor woman! thou art thy passion's plaything:
now tender as the morning sky, and now, when jealousy grips thy heart,
more cruel than the sea. Well, thus are we made. Soon, after all this
troubling, nothing will be left thee but tears, remorse, and--memory."
And she went forth.
CHAPTER XIV
OF THE TENDER CARE OF CHARMION; OF THE HEALING OF HARMACHIS; OF THE
SAILING OF THE FLEET OF CLEOPATRA FOR CILICIA; AND OF THE SPEECH OF
BRENNUS TO HARMACHIS
Cleopatra went, and for a while I lay silent, gathering up my strength
to speak. But Charmion came and stood over me, and I felt a great tear
fall from her dark eyes upon my face, as the first heavy drop of rain
falls from a thunder cloud.
"Thou goest," she whispered; "thou goest fast whither I may not follow!
O Harmachis, how gladly would I give my life for thine!"
Then at length I opened my eyes, and spoke as best I could:
"Restrain thy grief, dear friend," I said, "I live yet; and, in truth, I
feel as though new life gathered in my breast!"
She gave a little cry of joy, and I never saw aught more beautiful than
the change that came upon her weeping face! It was as when the first
lights of the day run up the pallor of that sad sky which veils the
night from dawn.
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