Kerœcia recovered her senses with a start. She seemed dazed for a moment; then she sat bolt upright, gasping for breath pitifully.
“What has distressed and hurt thee so?” asked Mineola with quivering lips, kneeling beside her and offering support.
The sound of a voice seemed to recall Kerœcia’s wandering senses.
“O God! Give me courage!” was her agonized cry. “My beloved is vowed to celibacy, and I must die!”
“What sayest thou?”
“Kerœcia, what dost thou mean?”
“Tell us fully,” they both said at once.
“Didst thou not see? In the opal—It was so from the beginning! O Thou Merciful One, take thy wretched servant! What have I done? Shame everlasting is my portion!”
“Why did he not tell thee of his vow?” asked Suravia, a note of rising indignation in her voice.
“How could he? I am to blame. He would not humiliate and degrade me before my people.”