‘No! no! look on me. My features are wasted, but I am the same; thou didst spurn me a while ago like a dog, and my heart was broken. There was kindness between us once, Jaffar!’ and she sighed deeply.
‘I knew thee not,’ he said, raising her up, and, for the moment yielding to a softer feeling, caressed her. ‘I had been maddened! insulted by that dog of a Patél, Kasim Ali. I knew thee not, Sozun.’
‘Ha! dost thou know him?’
‘To my cost; he and his dotard patron, Rhyman Khan, have despoiled me of money—villified my character; but enough, ’tis no affair of thine. Why dost thou ask?’
‘I have too a reckoning to settle with him, but let it pass; we will speak of that which once was pleasant to us. Thou hast not forgotten me then, Jaffar?’
‘Alla is my witness—never! But canst thou come hither this night at dusk, unobserved? then we will speak of past times uninterruptedly; now I have affairs of moment to settle, and must begone.’
‘I will come surely,’ was the reply; ‘thy voice is music in mine ears after so long a separation.’
‘Follow me then, and I will dismiss thee openly before my servants; but be sure thou dost not fail to-night.’