Be it a spell--be it obstinacy, I question thee no further, but leave thee to do thine errand after thine own fashion.

I also can be mute." The disguised knight made an action as if at once lamenting his own condition and deprecating her displeasure, while at the same time he presented to her, wrapped, as usual, in fine silk and cloth of gold, the letter of the Soldan.

She took it, surveyed it carelessly, then laid it aside, and bending her eyes once more on the knight, she said in a low tone, "Not even a word to do thine errand to me ?" He pressed both his hands to his brow, as if to intimate the pain which he felt at being unable to obey her; but she turned from him in anger.
"Begone!" she said.

"I have spoken enough--too much--to one who will not waste on me a word in reply.

Begone!--and say, if I have wronged thee, I have done penance; for if I have been the unhappy means of dragging thee down from a station of honour, I have, in this interview, forgotten my own worth, and lowered myself in thy eyes and in my own." She covered her eyes with her hands, and seemed deeply agitated.