"I am afraid of him, dear lady," replied the girl, pointing to the lofty chamber.
"Afraid! art thou, indeed?" said she, a little coldly, remembering the news of the day; "didst thou not sell thyself to the duke in spite of thy father's wishes?"
"O yes, I did, dear lady," replied Smâyâtee; "but—" and she began to cry bitterly, and could not say another word for her tears and sobs.
The true woman triumphed in the "wife," for she put out her arms, and raised the forlorn stranger to her bosom, and comforted her with such words as women who have great and loving hearts only can. Then, confiding her to the tender care of her own women, she went on her way to find out the meaning of those dreadful cries.
Nai Dhamaphat, who had been watching in sadness and despair the marvellous expression of Nature's tears and smiles, was the first to mount the spiral staircase, to find his father in the last agonies of death. He takes him up gently, with the assistance of the women, and places him on his luxurious couch.
The duke is dead.
Everything is forgotten. He sees the pale face of the duchess, his mother, that silent woman, and, catching a glimpse of the bitter sorrow of that patient soul, who was so worthy of his father's love in her right of youth and beauty,—the foremost to love him, the last and only woman of all those whom he had wronged to mourn him,—he bows his head and weeps. The son and the mother are drawn closer than ever. They two had suffered in silence apart. Now they sorrowed together.