I committed them to memory and returned home, and when I went in to my cousin I found her fallen into a fit and my mother sitting at her head. When she heard my voice, she opened her eyes and asked, "O Aziz! didst thou repeat the two couplets to her?" whereto I answered, "Yes; but she wept on hearing them; and she replied with this couplet beginning, If he of patience fail, to the end." And I repeated it; whereupon my cousin swooned again, and when she came to herself, she recited these two couplets, "Hearkening, obeying, with my dying mouth * I greet who joy of union ne'er allow'th: Pair fall all happy loves, and fair befal * The hapless lover dying in his drowth!" Again when it was night, I repaired to the garden as usual where I found the young lady awaiting me. We sat down and ate and drank, after which we did all we wanted and slept till the morning; and, as I was going away, I repeated to her the saying of my cousin. When she heard the couplet she cried out with a loud cry and was greatly moved and exclaimed, "Awáh! Awáh![FN#517] By Allah, she who spake these lines is dead!" Then she wept and said to me, "Woe to thee! How is she who spoke thus related to thee?" Replied I, "She is the daughter of my father's brother." "Thou liest," rejoined she; "by Allah, were she thy cousin, thou hadst borne her the same love as she bore thee! It is thou who hast slain her and may the Almighty kill thee as thou killedst her! By Allah, hadst thou told me thou hadst a cousin, I would not have admitted thee to my favours!" Quoth I, "Verily it was she who interpreted to me the signs thou madest and it was she who taught me how to come to thee and how I should deal with thee; and, but for her, I should never have been united to thee." She then asked me, "Did thy cousin then know of us?"; and I answered, "Yes;" whereupon she exclaimed, "Allah give thee sorrow of thy youth, even as thou hast sorrowed her youth!" Then she cried to me, "Go now and see after her." So I went away troubled at heart, and ceased not walking till I reached our street, when I heard sounds of wailing, and asking about it, was answered, "Azizah, we found her dead behind the door." I entered the house, and when my mother saw me, she said, "Her death lieth heavy on thy neck and may Allah not acquit thee of her blood!"—And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say. When it was the One Hundred and Twentieth Night,