His lightness sank her hope to the lowest ebb. A sudden hurt reached her heart. His unregeneracy suggested unfaithfulness to her. Their positions had been reversed. It was she that had been denied. Duty reasserted itself with a chiding sting.
"I have been a guest with Masanath—"
"The daughter of Har-hat!" he cried, retreating a step.
"The daughter of mine enemy," she went on. "She found me here by accident and took me to her home in Memphis. There Deborah died. And there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me, and now I return to my people."
"The fan-bearer did not find thee?" he demanded at once.
"Nay. Unseen, I looked upon his man. Alas! the wound to the daughter-love in Masanath! On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where she will wed with the Prince Rameses."
Kenkenes' hands fell to his sides. "Nay, now! Of a surety, this is the maddest caprice the Hathors ever wrought. In the house of thine enemy! Well for me I did not know it! I should have died from very apprehension. And all these months thou wast within sight of my father's doors!"
"I saw him once," she said.
"And discovered not thyself! How cruelly thou hast used thyself,
Rachel. He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back."
"Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing—"