“I have been a guest with Masanath—­”

“The daughter of Har-hat!” he cried, retreating a step.

“The daughter of mine enemy,” she went on.  “She found me here by accident and took me to her home in Memphis.  There Deborah died.  And there, eighteen days agone, I discovered who it was that sheltered me, and now I return to my people.”

“The fan-bearer did not find thee?” he demanded at once.

“Nay.  Unseen, I looked upon his man.  Alas! the wound to the daughter-love in Masanath!  On the morrow she departeth for Tanis where she will wed with the Prince Rameses.”

Kenkenes’ hands fell to his sides.  “Nay, now!  Of a surety, this is the maddest caprice the Hathors ever wrought.  In the house of thine enemy!  Well for me I did not know it!  I should have died from very apprehension.  And all these months thou wast within sight of my father’s doors!”

“I saw him once,” she said.

“And discovered not thyself!  How cruelly thou hast used thyself, Rachel.  He would have told thee, long ago, why I came not back.”

“Aye, now I know; but, Kenkenes, I could not go, fearing—­”

“Enough.  I forgot.  Come, let us go hence.  Memphis and my father’s house await thee now.”

“But I go to my people, even now,” she answered, with averted face and unready words.

Kenkenes whitened.

“And leave me?” he asked quietly.

“Think me not ungrateful,” she said.  “I have said no words of thanks since there is none that can express a tithe of my great indebtedness to thee.”

“I have achieved nothing for thee.  Not even have I won thy freedom.  I have failed.  But shameless in mine undeserts, I am come to ask my reward nevertheless.”  He was very near to her, his face full of purpose and intensity, his voice of great restraint.

“That which once thou didst refuse to hear, thou hast known for long by other proof than words,” he went on.  “Let me say it now.  I love thee, Rachel.”  Taking her cold hands he drew her back to him.

“Once I forbore,” he continued, the persuasive calm in his manner heightening, “because I knew it would hurt thee to say me ‘nay,’ I told myself that I was brave, then, when the actual loss of thee was distant.  But thou wilt leave me now and my fortitude for thy sake is gone.  I am selfish because I love thee so.  The extreme is reached.  I can withstand no more.  Dost thou love me, Rachel?”

What need for him to wait for the word that gave assent?  Was there not eloquent testimony in her every feature and in every act of that hour he had been with her?  But his hands trembled, holding hers, till she told him “aye.”

“Then ask what thou wilt of me,” he said, the restraint gone, desperation taking its place.  “I submit, so thou dost yield thyself to me.  Shall I pray thy prayers, kneel in thy shrines?  Shall I go with thee into slavery?  Shall I learn thy tongue, turn my back on my people, become one of Israel and hate Egypt?  These things will I do, and more, so I shall find thee all mine own when they are done.”