Ahalya gave a nervous start. Now that she had attained her end, the Ranee began to wish herself a thousand miles away, so confused was she by the presence of this man. Fidá saw how her hands trembled; and, emboldened by the flush of her half-averted cheek, his heart beating furiously with a sudden hope, he took her by the hand and gently, persuasively, led her to the stone from which he had just risen. Here, though she would have protested, he caused her to sit down. “I must have the poppies,” she found courage to say, lifting up her basket, and suddenly smiling. “Neila and Churi may come at any moment.” And she turned again to look at the ruin. This time the two figures had disappeared entirely. “I will get poppies for you. Wait.” And, taking the basket, Fidá darted forward and began plucking the tough-stemmed flowers. In five minutes the basket was heaping full, though the assortment was anything but select. But while he worked, his back turned to Ahalya, all his new-born audacity suddenly ran out at his finger-tips, and when he returned to her with the narcotic burden, his eyes were fixed on the ground, and he was more confused than she. He laid the basket at her feet, and then stood, like a culprit, before her. “Let the Ranee pardon me!” he whispered. “Pardon thee?” she asked, wondering. “Ah, I have dared to lift my eyes to thee, and now—and now—” his voice, unpent, rang clear. “And now,” she breathed, most softly. “Now,” his heart throbbed, “I cannot lower them again!” Her eyes lifted themselves to his, and she smiled at him, half shyly, half with a beautiful pride. Seeing that smile, Fidá’s senses deserted him. He fell upon his knees before her, and lifted up his hands, crying: “Ahalya! I love you! I love you! I love you!” The princess shivered, half in terror, half in—something else. But she could not speak. Slowly, therefore, the fire died out of Fidá’s face. His dark head, bound with its slave’s circlet, drooped lower and lower, till at length it rested on a stone at the edge of her silken garment, and his face was buried in his arms. So they remained for a long time, taking no account of the moments as they passed, neither of them happy, both afraid of what they had done, of the astonishing betrayal. Fidá was sick and shaken with his inward tumult. Ahalya sat in a rigid calm, thinking, after a desultory fashion, of many ordinary things that now seemed infinitely far removed from her. The bitter weariness of her life had suddenly disappeared; but that which replaced it, she could not just now consider. The revolution was too absolute. How should she readjust herself so soon? Yet, since they were here together, free and alone, she wished to speak; and so, in a sweet, monotonous tone, she gave voice to many fragments that were in both their minds.