It may happen that in this shame I hoped to find love if only for one short hour, and that I purposed to vary the custom of our people, and to complete my marriage by the side of the victim on the altar, as, if I will, I have the right to do.  But I see well that I am not welcome, and though it is too late to go back upon my word, have no fear.  There are others, and I shall not trouble you.  I have given my message, is it your pleasure that I should go?  The solemn ceremony of wedlock will be on the twelfth day from now, O Tezcat.’

Now I rose from my seat and took her hand, saying: 

’I thank you, Otomie, for your nobleness of mind.  Had it not been for the comfort and friendship which you and Guatemoc your cousin have given me, I think that ere now I should be dead.  So you desire to comfort me to the last; it seems that you even purposed to die with me.  How am I to interpret this, Otomie?  In our land a woman would need to love a man after no common fashion before she consented to share such a bed as awaits me on yonder pyramid.  And yet I may scarcely think that you whom kings have sued for can place your heart so low.  How am I to read the writing of your words, princess of the Otomie?’

‘Read it with your heart,’ she whispered low, and I felt her hand tremble in my own.

I looked at her beauty, it was great; I thought of her devotion, a devotion that did not shrink from the most horrible of deaths, and a wind of feeling which was akin to love swept through my soul.  But even as I looked and thought, I remembered the English garden and the English maid from whom I had parted beneath the beech at Ditchingham, and the words that we had spoken then.  Doubtless she still lived and was true to me; while I lived should I not keep true at heart to her?  If I must wed these Indian girls, I must wed them, but if once I told Otomie that I loved her, then I broke my troth, and with nothing less would she be satisfied.  As yet, though I was deeply moved and the temptation was great, I had not come to this.

‘Be seated, Otomie,’ I said, ’and listen to me.  You see this golden token,’ and I drew Lily’s posy ring from my hand, ’and you see the writing within it.’

She bent her head but did not speak, and I saw that there was fear in her eyes.

‘I will read you the words, Otomie,’ and I translated into the Aztec tongue the quaint couplet: 

Heart to heart, Though far apart.

Then at last she spoke.  ‘What does the writing mean?’ she said.  ’I can only read in pictures, Teule.’

’It means, Otomie, that in the far land whence I come, there is a woman who loves me, and who is my love.’

‘Is she your wife then?’

‘She is not my wife, Otomie, but she is vowed to me in marriage.’