I will strive, if I am allowed to bide here--I do not say that I shall succeed, for as your lord has reminded me, and as you showed me in the temple of Amon, my strength is smaller than that of the prophets and prophetesses of Israel." "And if I refuse ?" "Then, Lady," he answered in a voice that rang like iron, "I am sure that one whom you love--as mothers love--will shortly be rocked in the arms of the god whom we name Osiris." "_Stay_," she cried and, turning, fled away.
"Why, Ana, she is gone," he said, "and that before I could bargain for my reward.

Well, this I must find in your company.

How strange are women, Ana! Here you have one of the greatest of her sex, as you learned in the temple of Amon.

And yet she opens beneath the sun of hope and shrivels beneath the shadow of fear, like the touched leaves of that tender plant which grows upon the banks of the river; she who, with her eyes set on the mystery that is beyond, whereof she hears the whispering winds, should tread both earthly hope and fear beneath her feet, or make of them stepping stones to glory.

Were she a man she would do so, but her sex wrecks her, she who thinks more of the kiss of a babe than of all the splendours she might harbour in her breast.