killed me! Go, . . tell her how well her cruel mission hath sped,--
my very soul is slain...at her bidding! Hasten to her, wilt
thou!".. and his accents trembled with pathetic plaintiveness! ...
"Say I am gone! ... lost! drawn into a night of everlasting
blackness like a taper blown swiftly out by the wind, . . tell her
that Sah-luma,--the poet Sah-luma, the foolish-credulous Sah-luma
who loved her so madly is no more!"

His voice broke, . . his head drooped, . . while Theos, whose every
nerve throbbed in responsive sympathy with the passion of his
despair, strove to think of some word of comfort, that like
soothing balm might temper the bitterness of his chafed and
wounded spirit, but could find none. For it was a case in which
the truth must be told, . . and truth is always hard to bear if it
destroys, or attempts to destroy, any one of our cherished self-
delusions!

"My friend, my friend!" he said presently with gentle
earnestness,--"Control this fury of thy heart! ... Why such
unmanly sorrow for one who is not worthy of thee?"

Sah-luma looked up,--his black, silky lashes were wet with tears.

"Not worthy! ... Oh, the old poor consolation!" he exclaimed,
quickly dashing the drops from his eyes, . . "Not worthy?--No! ...
what mortal woman IS ever worthy of a poet's love?--Not one in all
the world! Nevertheless, worthy or unworthy, true or treacherous,
naught can make Lysia otherwise than fair! Fair beyond all
fairness! ... and I--I was sole possessor of her beauty!--for me
her eyes warmed into stars of fire,--for me her kisses ripened in