Her heart ached for the country.
It was so still there in the dusk she knew, even in this wild autumn night, which there would be so purple with leaf shadow, so brown with embracing branches, so gray with silvery faint mists of lily, white with virgin snows. Ah, God! to reach it once again, she thought, if only to die in it.
And yet she stayed on in this, which was to her the deepest hell, stayed on because he—in life or death—was here.
She started as a hand touched her softly, where she stood looking through the narrow space. The eyes of Sartorian smiled on her through the twilight.
"Do you shrink still?" he said, gently. "Put back your knife; look at me quietly; you will not have the casket?—very well. Your strength is folly; yet it is noble. It becomes you. I do you good for ill. I have had search made for your lover, who loves not you. I have found him."
"Living?" She quivered from head to foot; the gray walls reeled round her; she feared, she hoped, she doubted, she believed. Was it hell? Was it heaven? She could not tell. She cared not which, so that only she could look once more upon the face of Arslàn.
"Living," he answered her, and still he smiled. "Living. Come with me, and see how he has used the liberty you gave. Come."
She staggered to her feet and rose, and held her knife close in the bosom of her dress, and with passionate eyes of hope and dread searched the face of the old man through the shadows.
"It is the truth?" she muttered. "If you mock me,—if you lie——"
"Your knife will sheathe itself in my body, I know. Nay, I have never lied to you. One cannot wear a velvet glove to tame a lioness. Come with me; fear nothing, Folle-Farine. Come with me, and see with your own eyesight how the world of men has dealt with this your god."