She gave up the idea of examining him any further.  He was a man not easily surprised, and it was only by means of a surprise that he could be induced to betray even by a passing expression what he meant to conceal.  Her means of attack were exhausted for the present.  She determined at least to repeat her request clearly before dismissing him, in the hope that it might suit his plans to fulfil it, but without the least trust in his sincerity.

“Will you be so kind as to make some inquiry, and let me know the result to-day?” she asked.

“I will do everything to give you an early answer,” said Keyork.  “And I shall be the more anxious to obtain one without delay in order that I may have the very great pleasure of visiting you again.  There is much that I would like to ask you, if you would allow me.  For old friends, as I trust I may say that we are, you must admit that we have exchanged few—­very few—­confidences this morning.  May I come again to-day?  It would be an immense privilege to talk of old times with you, of our friends in Egypt and of our many journeys.  For you have no doubt travelled much since then.  Your dear father,” he lowered his voice reverentially, “was a great traveller, as well as a very learned man.  Ah, well, my dear lady—­we must all make up our minds to undertake that great journey one of these days.  But I pain you.  I was very much attached to your dear father.  Command all my service.  I will come again in the course of the day.”

With many sympathetic smiles and half-comic inclinations of his short, broad body, the little man bowed himself out.

CHAPTER XXVI

Unorna drew one deep breath when she first heard her name fall with a loving accent from the Wanderer’s lips.  Surely the bitterness of despair was past since she was loved and not called Beatrice.  The sigh that came then was of relief already felt, the forerunner, as she fancied, too, of a happiness no longer dimmed by shadows of fear and mists of rising remorse.  Gazing into his eyes, she seemed to be watching in their reflection a magic change.  She had been Beatrice to him, Unorna to herself, but now the transformation was at hand—­now it was to come.  For him she loved, and who loved her, she was Unorna even to the name, in her own thoughts she had taken the dark woman’s face.  She had risked all upon the chances of one throw and she had won.  So long as he had called her by another’s name the bitterness had been as gall mingled in the wine of love.  But now that too was gone.  She felt that it was complete at last.  Her golden head sank peacefully upon his shoulder in the morning light.

“You have been long in coming, love,” she said, only half consciously, “but you have come as I dreamed—­it is perfect now.  There is nothing wanting any more.”

“It is all full, all real, all perfect,” he answered, softly.

“And there is to be no more parting, now——­”