She put both her hands on his shoulders and said simply and quietly:
"Listen, my brother, three people have already perished through me; I don't want you to perish too...."
"It wouldn't be through you, don't be afraid; I hated him before you came."
There was a long silence, then she asked, speaking still lower than before:
"What do you hate him for?"
"Don't you know? Surely you don't believe, do you, that King Akhnaton is the One who is to come?
"No. I know he is only His shadow."
"But he does believe it himself."
"No, he doesn't. That was your temptation, your snare, but he is free from it now."
"He is not—he never will be. I tempted him, you say? Why, could I ever have done it without him? I merely said aloud what he thought; I revealed his own secret to him. And do you imagine one can say 'I am He' and then repent? I don't know who has been led into temptation—I by him or he by me. But anyway, there is no greater temptation upon earth than for a man to say 'I am God.' Yes, he is only a shadow of the One to come; this one has said 'I will kindle the flame' and that One will kindle it. But maybe we still have time to put it out...."