“But your real name? Will you not tell me?”
“I have forgotten it—almost. It shall never be known now—not even when I am dead. People know me as the Persian woman, who lives near Hawal Ghât.”
“Let me do something for you. Oh, you will—you must!”
“What could you do, my dear?” she asked in a hopeless tone.
“You will allow me to write to you. Let me go too and see you. Permit me to brighten your life in some way.”
“Impossible. It has done me good to have seen you. I have poured my story, once before I die, into the ear of a fellow-countrywoman. May you be ever happy and blessed. Give me some little token, not to remember you by, but to keep because it was yours.”
“What can I give you?”—thinking with regret of her few trinkets that were elsewhere.
“A little cornelian ring, I noticed on your finger.”
Honor pulled it off. She felt a long, fervent kiss pressed upon her hand. Then she said—
“You will give me leave to write to you and send you books? You must. I will take no refusal. But we can talk about that in the morning, can we not?”