“Separates us?” she said blankly, looking at him.
“Separates us,” he repeated, “as heaven and hell are separated. We have been the toys—the playthings, of Fate. If you had not looked out of your cabin that night, we should both be happy now. And then how was it we came to love each other and to know it to be love? I struggled against it, but I was as a feather upon the wind. Ah, God has given us this agony of love, for I am here to look on you for the last time—to beseech of you to hate me, and to go away knowing that you love me.”
“No, no, not to go away—anything but that. Tell me all—I can forgive all.”
“I cannot bring my lips to frame my curse,” he said after a little pause. “But you shall hear it, and, Daireen, pity me as you pitied me when I looked to God for hope and found none. Child—give me your eyes for the last time.”
She held him clasped with her white hands, and he saw that her passion made her incapable of understanding his words. She looked up to him whispering, “The last time—no, no—not the last time—not the last.”
She was in his arms. He looked down upon her face, but he did not kiss it. He clenched his teeth as he unwound her arms from him.
“One word may undo the curse that I have bound about your life,” he said. “Take the word, Daireen—the blessed word for you and me—Forget. Take it—it is my last blessing.”
She was standing before him. She saw his face there, and she gave a cry, covering her own face with her hands, for the face she saw was that which had looked up to her from the black waters.
Was he gone?
From the river bank came the sounds of the native women, from the garden the hum of insects, and from the road the echo of a horse's hoofs passing gradually away.