"What I said, or did, or thought, I know not--perhaps, nothing. The world was all in a whirl with me, and perhaps I fainted, in my worn-out state. It does not matter what I did. From the strongest man in the Caucasus, I was struck to the level of the weakest child. Even my twin sister, with a woman's petty spite inflamed by jealousy and bitter wrong, had some of the echoes of childhood roused, and thought of the time when she loved me. "'It is the part of a fool,' she said, meaning it for large comfort, 'to be so wild about a woman, and the phantasy that they call love. When I was a child, I believed in it; and to what has it brought me? To cast away my life upon a man, who swore that I was all the world to him, and believed it perhaps, while I was new. But lo, in a year he was weary of me, because I made too much of him. Hath Princess Oria done that? Nay, or thou wouldst be weary of her. Tush, what careth she for her lord? And why should he take it to heart like this? There are plenty of women in the world, my brother; and the more their husbands make of them, the less will they return it. I am the one that should lament, not thou. For I have lost a man, but thou a woman only. My husband will come back to me when he is weary of thy Georgian doll; and I shall be forced to welcome him. But thou, such is the law, thou hast it at thy pleasure to be free.' "'Talk not to me,' I said, for this was salt rubbed into my gashes; 'go and get me food, that I may recover a little of my strength. And then, _thou also shalt be free_.' "Many a time have I wondered whether she knew what I meant by those last words. If she knew it, she said nothing, but marched away in her stately style, dragging by the hand her child, who had been staring at my face all the time, as if he had never seen a man before. Marva's own servants brought me food, and I knew not what it was, but took it, not for life so much as death--for death of Rakhan, the adulterer. "Some sleep as well was needful to me, before I could accomplish that,--sleep to restore the power of thought which seemed to have left me imbecile, as well as the vigour of my jaded body. No further would I enter my own house, but collected some rugs and bearskins--for we had not even a bourka left--and was about to throw myself on a couch, when Marva's little boy came dancing, half in fright and half in glee at his own self-importance, with a crumpled letter for me. That she should send it by such hands is enough to show how she was changed. I saw that it was from my enemy, and by the light of the one lamp they had brought me read the words that follow:--