“I love you. Is it not right, and holy? I love young things, and youth, and beauty. Krishna and Radha loved thus. Who knows how it comes? I loved you by the well. Your eyes shone into mine, and you smiled at me, and you were not afraid. I loved to think of you, a captive, and a prince. Most of all I love you here, because, Fidá—because—ah, look!” At the change in her voice the slave roused himself, as one wakes, with an effort, from some wondrous dream. Ahalya also had risen, and was staring fearfully at a figure that approached them out of the shadow of the trees. “Ragunáth!” muttered Fidá. “Name of the prophet! how comes he here?” “Where I am, there he is also,” murmured the Ranee. “Ah, Fidá, run, run, and bring Neila and Churi! I fear this man. He must not see you.” “He has already seen me. I cannot go.” This much they had time to say, as the Rajah’s counsellor came slowly toward them, his arms folded across his breast, his eyes aflame with angry suspicion. Ahalya, trembling though she was, still straightened up to receive him, and Fidá fell slightly behind her, to one side, as became a slave. But there was, in his attitude, small suggestion of respect for him who approached. At a little distance Ragunáth halted and looked at them:—looked as only he could look, from one to the other and back again. To-day, however, his lips did not smile, but wore the hard line of jealousy. Under this gaze Ahalya quivered anew; and Fidá heard her catch her breath. Instinctively he stepped forward. But, just at that moment, Ragunáth raised his upper lip a little off his teeth, and spoke: “The Lady Ahalya has found a new slave.” Ahalya turned white, but remained silent. Fidá gazed steadily and scornfully at the eavesdropper, who, after waiting a moment, said again: “Is there a new law of the Lord Rajah’s, that his slaves shall walk with his women—picking poppies, in the fields?” Ahalya, angered beyond her dread, opened her lips to speak; but Fidá was before her. “The Lady Ahalya, attended by Churi, and Neila, her woman, came to this field to gather poppies. I, unknowing, was here before her. When the Lady Ahalya perceived me, she allowed me to pluck the flowers for her and to lay them at her feet.” “Churi and the woman, then,—am I blinded? I do not see them here,” and he peered about the field like a man looking for a lost gem. Fidá’s hands itched for his throat; but now, suddenly, Ahalya assumed the height of her position, and, actually stamping her foot with outraged dignity, cried: “Does Lord Ragunáth presume—_dare_—to doubt my word? I say that Neila and Churi brought me hither; and, coming here, we found this trusted slave of my lord, whom I commanded to pluck the poppies for me. But my Lord Ragunáth—came he hither also to get flowers to make a rouge for his face?” The last words she all but spat at him.