The woman moved away, a strange bewilderment shewing itself in her kind eyes. Again I was left alone in my restless self-communings. I heard people moving to and fro in the house. I heard the window of Mouraki’s room, where the captain was, closed with a decisive hand; and then I became aware of some one approaching me. I turned and saw Phroso’s white dress gleaming through the gloom, and her face nearly as white above it. Yes, the time had come; but I was not ready. CHAPTER XXI A WORD OF VARIOUS MEANINGS She came up to me swiftly and without hesitation. I had looked for some embarrassment, but there was none in her face. She met my eyes full and square, and began to speak to me at once. ‘My lord,’ she said, ‘I must ask one thing of you. I must lay one more burden on you. After to-day I dare not be here when my countrymen learn how they are deluded. I should be ashamed to face them, and I dare not trust myself to the Turks, for I don’t know what they would do with me. Will you take me with you to Athens, or to some other port from which I can reach Athens? I can elude the guards here. I shall be no trouble: you need only tell me when your boat will start, and give me a corner to live in on board. Indeed I grieve to ask more of you, for you have done so much for me; but my trouble is great and-- What is it, my lord?’ I had moved my hand to stop her. She had acted in the one way in which, had it been to save my life, I could not have. She put what had passed utterly out of the way, treating it as the merest trick. My part in it was to her the merest trick; of hers she said nothing. Had hers then been a trick also? My blood grew hot at the thought. I could not endure it. ‘When your countrymen learn how they are deluded?’ said I, repeating her words. ‘Deluded in what?’ ‘In the trick we played on them, my lord, to--to persuade them to disperse.’ I took a step towards her, and my voice shook as I said: ‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ For at this moment I set above everything else in the world a fresh assurance of her love. I would force it from her sooner than not have it. She answered me with questioning eyes and a sad little smile. ‘Are we then betrothed?’ she said, in mournful mockery. I was close by her now. I did not touch her, but I bent a little, and my face was near hers. ‘Was it a trick to-day, and a trick on St Tryphon’s day also?’ I asked. She gave one startled glance at my face, and then her eyes dropped to the ground. She made no answer to my question. ‘Was it all a trick, Phroso?’ I asked in entreaty, in urgency, in the wild longing to hear her love declared once, here, to me alone, where nobody could hear, nobody impair its sweet secrecy. Phroso’s answer came now, set to the accompaniment of the saddest, softest, murmuring laugh. ‘Ah, my lord, must you hear it again? Am I not twice shamed already?’