'Yet you said not long since that if I were such as you once hoped, you would bid me remain.' 'I do not care,' he answered. 'Yet for your own sake, I advise you to go away.' 'For my own sake!' she repeated, trying to speak scornfully, and turning to go a second time. But she did not reach the door. She stood still before the weapons which hung upon the wall, and paused a moment and then took a sword from its place. Khaled watched her. She grasped the hilt as well as she could and swung the weapon in the air once with all her might. Then she uttered a little cry of pain, for she had twisted her wrist. The sword fell to the floor. 'He is right,' she said in a low tone, speaking aloud to herself. 'I am weak and can be of no use to him.' She went on once more towards the door, slowly, her head bent down, then stopped and then looked back again. She feared that she might see a smile on his face, but his eyes were grave and calm. Then he saw her turn and lean against the wall as though she were suddenly weak. She hid her face, and there was silence for a moment, and after that a low sound of weeping filled the still room. 'Why do you shed tears?' Khaled asked presently. 'There is no danger for you, I think. If you will go and shut yourself in the inner rooms you will be safe.' She turned fiercely and their eyes met. 'What do I care for myself?' she cried. 'Among so many deaths there is surely one for me!' Even as she spoke Khaled felt a cool breath upon his forehead, stirring the stillness. He knew that it came from the beating of an angel's wings. All his body trembled, his head fell forward a little and his eyes closed. 'This is death,' he thought, 'and my fate has come. A little longer, and she would have loved me.' But he did not speak aloud. Again Zehowah's face was turned towards the wall, and still the sound of her weeping filled the air, not subsiding and dying away, but rather increasing with every moment. 'Life is not yet gone,' said Khaled in his heart. 'There is yet hope.' For he no longer felt the cold breath on his forehead, and the trembling had ceased for a moment. He tried to speak aloud, but his lips could not form words nor his throat utter sounds, and he was amazed at his weakness. A great despair came upon him and his eyes were darkened so that he could not see the lights. 'If only I could speak to her now, she might love me yet!' he thought. The distant murmur from without was louder now and reached the room, and he heard it. He tried with all his might to raise his hand, to lift his head, to speak a single word. 'It may be that this is the nature of death,' he thought again, 'and I am already dead.'