"The white man? He is bound to the temple walls, awaiting the woman he allows to walk unveiled and alone throughout India."
"Ah!" said Leonie, with that little hush in her voice which is heard in the mother's when she first sees her new-born babe. "I am sorry," she continued quietly, "so sorry I have not been honest with you. I cannot marry you because——"
She stopped and turned as with a sound like the tearing of silk a flock of birds suddenly flew from the tree tops and whirled away into the night.
"Because? Because, woman?"
For a moment Leonie unconsciously watched the flight of the birds, then swung round, arms stretched wide, eyes shining, and her face aglow.
"Because I love the white man in the temple who is tied to the wall, that is why!"
Her voice rang clear and true under the sky, and she stepped back quickly and threw out her hands as the man spoke. For the banked-down fires of his passion and his love, and the hurt to his race, and his own sudden-born agony flared in one half-second into a mighty, awful conflagration. The flame of his words licked at her feet and the hem of her garments, blazed across her hands with which she hid her face, and swept right over her from head to heels, and yet he did not touch her nor raise his voice one half tone.
"Thou woman! Then shall no man have thee, for I will drive my dagger through the white man's heart before thine eyes, and watch thee, thou beautiful thing, wed him in the shadow of death."
And Leonie, catching the look in his eyes and the set of the mouth, knew that he meant what he said; and she laid her hand on his arm, so that his agony was increased a thousandfold as he looked down upon her whom he had lost.
"You would not, could not do that?" she whispered.