Again, impulsively, he advanced and renewed his caressing touch.
“There can be no issue but one. You know it, Tiretta—man, you know it. We are all in the bonds of fate, and helpless. Now, listen and believe me. If it were possible, I would yield her to you. It is not possible. Then would you condemn your friend to a loveless match?”
“What would you have me do?”
His voice was quite wrung and broken.
“I would have you,” said Joseph, “atone, in the only way you can, the wrong you have done, not to me but to her.”
“I am to go—never to see her again—to leave her believing me faithless?”
“Better a faithless lover than a faithless wife. So only can you heal the wound you have inflicted. For her sake, Tiretta.”
“Why do you not call in your guards, and have me silenced for ever? I will make no resistance.”
“Because I am human, though a prince, Tiretta.”
For a while, desperate, still mutinous, the man’s torn soul fought out its tragedy of renunciation. And at last impulsively surrendered. With bowed head, he spoke the words: