For Love of a Bedouin Maid

by Voleur

Then she turned to the two men. "Loose this gentleman, but be careful not to hurt him. Then leave us, but remain within call. I would speak in private with my husband."

The men unbound St. Just, and then withdrew.

"Henri," she began, pleading in her gentlest tones, "forgive me. Now that I have avenged myself upon the man I hated with a hatred that was uncontrollable, that so filled my being that there was scarce a corner for any other passion; now that, with its satisfaction, that hatred has been swept away, love has rushed in upon me, like a torrent, to fill the void; love for you, Henri, whom I acknowledge I have wickedly neglected and used only for my own ends. I know you are angry with me now, and I have merited your anger. But, oh! be generous and forgive me. I swear that never again will I be otherwise than a true and devoted wife. All my love, aye, all my being is now yours. You have no rival in my heart. I will strive my hardest—but it will need no striving, for it will be my chief delight—to compensate for my past neglect. For every year that is added to the roll of time, I will give you ten years of love; when painful memories assail you, I will chase them away with kisses; should sickness come to you, I will be to you the gentlest, most patient nurse that man could have; I will see only with your eyes; hear only with your ears; speak only with your lips. My very thoughts shall be enslaved to you—and proudly so. Oh! forget the troublous years we have passed through, and let us start a new life together from to-day, never to be parted for an hour."

All the time that she was pleading, she was gazing anxiously in his face for the first sign of yielding; but she gazed in vain. She saw no softening of the stern expression, no kindling of the cold, dark eyes, no tinting of the deadly pallor of the face. Austere and motionless he sat, listening, but in no wise moved. Napoleon himself could not have looked more stern. And, all the while, he had uttered not a word.

She could see that she had made no impression, and it frightened her. She had seen him furious before, but never with a look like this. An awful fear came over her that she had lost him; she shivered, and her face became as pale as his. For she was in deadly earnest; with all the strength of her passionate nature, she loved him, and, at that moment, felt that she could not survive the loss of him. But she would not yet relinquish hope. She would exhaust all the armory of her persuasive weapons first.

She threw herself on the ground and clasped him round the legs; then turned her face up to him beseechingly, the tears streaming from her eyes. "Henri," she wailed, "you terrify me when you look like that. Oh! bend your eyes on me with love, as in the olden days. Am I less beautiful than of yore? Men do not tell me so. Oh! recall the time of Cairo and the desert, when our days and nights were wholly given up to love, when we were all in all to one another. I can love; you know how I can love, and you were never wearied with it; you used to say that you never had enough, although I lavished all I had on you. Then I was an untutored girl, with no knowledge that could interest a man; with nothing but my love to give. Now I have learned much, and can hold my own in the world of rank and intellect; men listen when I talk, and not alone from courtesy, for they take counsel with me on the gravest matters. You know this, Henri, you know that I am better fitted to be your helpmeet than when first you loved me."

The anguish in her face was terrible, but still he sat implacable and mute.

"Oh! cruel, cruel!" she went on; "will nothing touch your heart; or is it turned to stone? Henri, my husband, give me back your love, forgive me and take me to your heart again, or I shall die. I cannot live without you. What, still obdurate? Oh! speak to me!"

Then he unloosed his tongue.

"Yes, I will speak. Traitress! Adulteress! for I know that, in my absence, you forgot your honor as a wife, and gave rein to your unbridled passions." She started and the blood rushed for an instant to her face; then forsook it, and she became even whiter than before. But she uttered no word of protest. "I have heard you patiently, but unmoved. The time when your pleadings could beguile me, is past for ever. I will do you the justice to believe that you are speaking from your heart, but there is no response in mine. I acknowledge to the full your beauty, but the glamour that enthralled me has passed away. Your presence has become hateful to me, the touch of your fingers is abhorrent. Till I knew you, I was an honorable man, with a career before me in which my soul delighted, and in which I should have won distinction. I might have become a Marshal of France; nay, I am sure, I should, unless I had lost my life in battle; but, even so, I should have preserved my honor.