I will tell thee how he flung down caste and prejudice to welcome
them, drank in their Thought and Culture, trembled on the brink of their
Religion. Already the path had been broken for him. His mother's sister
had married out of her race--an Englishman--I know not how it came
about--and their child followed in her steps. I will tell thee how the
young man came to know this cousin and her husband, also an Unbeliever.
How often these two became his guests I will not tell thee. He took
pleasure in their presence, partly for his mother's sake, partly because
the white race had become dear to him. They brought others with them, and
among them an English officer. Hear now further.
"This young man had one wife, following the English custom--one wife more
beautiful than her sisters, whom he loved as a man loves but once in life.
In his madness, in spite of warnings of his priests, he gave her the
freedom almost of an English-woman. Wheresoever he went she followed him;
with her at his right hand he received his English guests; it was she who
sang to them--" He ground his teeth in a sudden outburst of rage. "Mad,
mad was I! Mad to trust a woman, and to trust the stranger! Son, the night
came when my wife sang no more to me, and the stranger's shadow ceased to
darken my threshold. Three years I sought them--three years; then one
night she came back to me. He had cast her from him. She lay dead at my
feet.
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