" I wondered at this and said to her, "What
then didst thou purpose to do with me, and we lovers?" Quoth she,
"Thou art infatuated with me; for thou art young and witless; thy
heart is free from guile and thou knowest not our perfidy and
malice. Were she yet alive, she would protect thee, for she is
the cause of thy preservation and hath delivered thee from
destruction. And now I charge thee that thou speak not with
neither accost any of our sex, young or old, for thou art young
and simple and knowest not the wiles of women and their malice,
and she who explained the signs to thee is dead. And indeed I
fear for thee, lest thou fall into some calamity and find none to
deliver thee from it, now that thy cousin is dead. Alas, the pity
of her! Would God I had known her before her death, that I might
have visited her and requited her the fair service she did me!
The mercy of the Most High be upon her, for she kept her secret
and revealed not what she suffered, and but for her, thou hadst
never won to me! But there is one thing I desire of thee." "What
is it?" said I. "It is," answered she, "that thou bring me to her
grave, that I may visit her in the tomb wherein she is and write
some verses thereon." "To-morrow," replied I, "if it be the will
of God." Then I lay with her that night, and she ceased not, from
time to time, to say, "Would thou hadst told me of thy cousin,
before her death!" And I said to her, "What is the meaning of the
two words she taught me?" But she made me no answer.
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