‘Why, then? Have you not the heart of a human being in you? Is she not my sister?’
‘Well? You have done very well for fifteen years without your sister—why can you not do as well now? You don’t recollect her—you don’t love her.’
‘Not love her? I would die for her—die for you if you will but help me to see her!’
‘You would, would you? And if I brought you to her, what then! What if she were Pelagia herself, what then? She is happy enough now, and rich enough. Could you make her happier or richer?’
‘Can you ask? I must—I will—reclaim her from the infamy in which I am sure she lives.’
‘Ah ha, sir monk! I expected as much. I know, none knows better, what those fine words mean. The burnt child dreads the fire; but the burnt old woman quenches it, you will find. Now listen. I do not say that you shall not see her—I do not say that Pelagia herself is not the woman whom you seek—but—you are in my power. Don’t frown and pout. I can deliver you as a slave to Arsenius when I choose. One word from me to Orestes, and you are in fetters as a fugitive.’
‘I will escape!’ cried he fiercely.
‘Escape me?’—She laughed, pointing to the teraph—‘Me, who, if you fled beyond Kaf, or dived to the depths of the ocean, could make these dead lips confess where you were, and command demons to bear you back to me upon their wings! Escape me! Better to obey me, and see your sister.’
Philammon shuddered, and submitted. The spell of the woman’s eye, the terror of her words, which he half believed, and the agony of longing, conquered him, and he gasped out—
‘I will obey you—only—only—’