Page:Orczy--the gates of Kamt.djvu/315

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WHITE ROSEMARY
293

blossom from out the crowd of its more gorgeous sisters. He looked at it, and as the light flickered, I could see two great tears glistening in his eyes. "Rosemary for remembrance!"—the very words spoke of England and of home, and brought to his weary heart probably, more strongly than anything else could do, the thought of what he had lost.

"Rosemary for remembrance!"—we, in England, thousands of miles away, speak of the little plant as meaning remembrance; before me, in one moment, with those words, the gorgeousness of mystic Kamt had disappeared, and I saw its loveliest daughter filling the old Chestnuts with the radiance of her beauty, the melody of her voice. She became the incarnation of womanhood, of her who alone knows how to combine the tender friend, the wife, the mistress. There was dead silence in the temple. Neit-akrit had taken the bunch of rosemary and was fastening it to her posy, while Hugh watched her silently.

Then, suddenly, from the farther end of the sacred edifice, there where the great gateway faced directly towards the east, it seemed to me that a dull yet rosy light began to creep gently through.

"Neit-akrit," said Hugh, after a long while, "if thou didst wish to give me that posy as an emblem of happiness, it was wrong to add remembrance to it."

"Why?"

"Because since I have smelt that sprig of rosemary my memory has come back to me. Remembrance, like duty, is at times cold and cruel, and her figure now stands beside that gate and points towards the east."

"Nay, not yet!" she pleaded; "'tis but the lights of the city of Tanis gone crazy with joy."

"Remembrance whispers, Neit-akrit, that I have