“Go, go!” he cried, at last. “What are you doing here, unhappy one, with me? How can you bear that I should approach you—I, the faithless traitor, laden with the heaviest curse that was ever laid on man?”
Iravati listened in breathless terror. She did not understand all, though more than enough. She attempted to speak, but her voice failed her, and overcome with sorrow, she sank at his feet.
“The curse!” repeated Siddha, wildly; “the curse of Faizi—’Live with the memory of what you have done; and though you may attain all your heart desires, yet shall you always cast down your eyes before an honourable man.’ And should I dare to raise them to you, pure and innocent, whom I betrayed as basely as I did my noble friend! Go, I say, far from here. A figure stands between you and me. It is that of Faizi. He stands there, threatening as when he spoke my doom.”
As Iravati raised her head, she saw him cover his face with his hands, as though he dared not look at her. “Come,” she said, “let us go in; you have done too much, and so false visions torment you. Come, then.”
“Visions,” answered Siddha, bitterly; “would that they were! But, no. I am now again myself; my strength has returned, and with it the recollection, the terrible recollection, more real than ever. I never yet felt the full meaning of Faizi’s words; but now that I again see you, I comprehend them. Before the Emperor, and even before the meanest of my soldiers, have I cast down my eyes with shame; but never as now. Vainly I sought an honourable death. Iravati,” he continued, “you do not know with whom you speak; you do not know my last crimes.”
“I do know,” she answered, “though perhaps not exactly what happened between Faizi and yourself; but I have gathered sufficient from the words you have let fall.”
“And yet you still speak to me,” cried Siddha. “You do not turn from me; you even come to tend my last days.”
“Did I not give you my word, Siddha? and was I not bound to keep it until you yourself gave it to me back? and that you have never done. Did you not send me by Kulluka the token that told your last thought was mine? and I felt that I had taken duties on me, although no marriage ties bound us.”
“Then I now release you from your promise,” said Siddha. “It is true that no sooner did I awaken from that miserable blindness than my love for you returned with a strength that until then I did not know. You, you can be true to me, and fulfil all your duties. But you can love me no more.”
“I love you now, as I always did,” replied Iravati.