"This barbarian is your chief!" she said, as the tale closed. "His
enmity is your honor! I can well credit that he will never pardon your
having stood between him and his crime."
"He has never pardoned it yet, of a surety."
"I will not tell you it was a noble action," she said, with a smile
sweet as the morning--a smile that few saw light on them. "It came too
naturally to a man of honor for you to care for the epithet. Yet it was
a great one, a most generous one. But I have not heard one thing: what
argument did you use to obtain her release?"
"No one has ever heard it," he answered her, while his voice sank low.
"I will trust you with it; it will not pass elsewhere. I told him enough
of--of my own past life to show him that I knew what his had been, and
that I knew, moreover, though they were dead to me now, men in that
greater world of Europe who would believe my statement if I wrote them
this outrage on the Emir, and would avenge it for the reputation of the
Empire. And unless he released the Emir's wife, I swore to him that
I would so write, though he had me shot on the morrow; and he knew I
should keep my word."
She was silent some moments, looking on him with a musing gaze, in which
some pity and more honor for him were blended.
"You told him your past. Will you confess it to me?"
"I cannot, madame."
"And why?"
"Because I am dead! Because, in your presence, it becomes more bitter to
me to remember that I ever lived.
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