"I remained standing in the tent and listened to your song, Sitta Nefysseh. You sang to your husband of love and happiness--sang in sweet words what Djumeil says to his Lubna: `Nature breathes love. The bird in the air sings of love; the spring which bubbles at your feet murmurs of love; the rose that blossoms in the garden sheds love's fragrance--all is love and bliss. Woe to them who know nothing more of love, woe to them who bear a cold heart in their bosom.' This you sang, Sitta Nefysseh, and I stood listening, entranced. What I then felt was so all-absorbing, so divinely beautiful, that I was unwilling to have the harmony of that sweet moment broken in upon by the voice of man. I silently withdrew; your song informed me that Mourad slept and was in heavenly bliss. I noiselessly left the tent, and stepped out into the night. The moon shed its soft light around, enveloping the white tents scattered over the plain and the terrors of the day in a heavenly, silver veil. "I did not return to my tent that night, however. Where was I? If you should ask, Sitta Nefysseh, I could not tell you. But this much I can tell you, I was in paradise! I thought of this when I just now heard your slaves sing the song I then heard for the first time, and that has resounded in my heart ever since. I covered it with thick veils, and laid my hand on it to silence it: and I found it possible to do so while my noble friend Mourad still lived. I forced my heart to bury in its depths its wishes and longings. I have been silent, Sitta Nefysseh, not only while Mourad lived, but I have also honored the period allotted to a widow's mourning. But this is now passed; pain has vanisbed from your heart, I trust. Your heavenly countenance is again radiant with youthful loveliness, and no longer shows the traces of sorrow." "It is true, Osman Bey," said Nefysseh, with a low sigh; "time heals all wounds, and sorrow no longer darkens my soul; yet know that Mourad Bey still lives in my heart, and it is because he still lives for me that I am able to bear this life and this separation." "I well know, O Sitta, your fidelity, your noble sentiments," replied Bardissi; "it is this knowledge that makes me adore and reverence you; and were it not strange if I, too, could ever forget the man who loved you so passionately, and whose memory you still love? But such love, Sitta, excites no jealousy, and even he who loves passionately respects such love. Listen to me, Sitta Nefysseh; hear why I have come to you; I can endure it no longer; the seal must at last fall from his lips, and Bardissi must give utterance to what he feels, to that which glows in his heart, and can no longer be repressed. Yes, Sitta Nefysseh, you must at last hear that I am dying for love, and that if you refuse to hear me, I must--"