Deoris said sulkily, "I think every woman in this Temple must be bearing a child!" With a guilty start, she silenced herself.

Domaris appeared not to notice. "Childbearing is a disease easily caught," she quoted lightly, then straightened and came close to her sister. "Don't go, Deoris—stay and talk to me a little. I've missed you."

"If you want me," Deoris said ungraciously; then, penitent, she came to Domaris and the two sat on a low divan.

The older woman smiled. "I always want you, little sister."

"I'm not little any more," Deoris said irritably, tossing her head. "Why must you treat me like a baby?"

Domaris suppressed a laugh and lifted her sister's slender, beringed hand. "Perhaps—because you were my baby, before Micail was born." Her glance fell on the narrow, carven girdle which Deoris wore cinctured loosely over her night-dress. "Deoris, what is that?" she asked softly. "I don't believe I've seen you wearing it before."

"Only a girdle."

"How stupid of me," said Domaris dryly. Her slim fingers touched the crimson cord which knotted the links together, strangely twined through the carven wooden symbols. Clumsily, she bent to examine it more closely—and with a sharply indrawn breath, counted the links. The cord, twined into oddly knotted patterns, was treble; thrice sevenfold the flat carved emblems. It was beautiful, and yet, somehow ...

"Deoris!" she breathed, her voice holding sudden sharpness. "Did Riveda give you this?"

Scared by her tone, Deoris went sulky and defensive. "Why not?"

"Why not indeed?" Domaris's words were edged with ice; her hand closed hard around Deoris's thin wrist. "And why should he bind you with a—a thing like that? Deoris, answer me!"

"He has the right ..."

"No lover has that right, Deoris."

"He is not—"

Domaris shook her head. "You lie, Deoris," she said wearily. "If your lover were any other man, he would kill Riveda before he let him put that—that thing on you!" She made a queer sound that was almost a sob. "Please—don't lie to me any more, Deoris. Do you think you can hide it forever? How long must I pretend not to see that you are carrying a child beneath that—that—" Her voice failed her. How pitifully simple Deoris was, as if by denying a fact she could wish it out of existence!

Deoris twisted her hand free, staring at the floor, her face white and pinched. Guilt, embarrassment and fear seemed to mingle in her dark eyes, and Domaris took the younger girl in her arms.

"Deoris, Deoris, don't look like that! I'm not blaming you!"

Deoris was rigid in her sister's kind arms. "Domaris, believe me, I didn't."

Domaris tipped back the little face until her sister's eyes, dark as crushed violets, met her own. "The father is Riveda," she said quietly; and this time, Deoris did not contradict her. "I like this not even a little. Something is very wrong, Deoris, or you would not be acting this way. You are not a child, you are not ignorant, you have had the same teaching as I, and more in this particular matter ... you know—listen to me, Deoris! You know you need not have conceived a child save at your own and Riveda's wish," she finished inexorably, although Deoris sobbed and squirmed to get free of her hands and her condemning eyes. "Deoris—no, look at me, tell me the truth—did he force you, Deoris?"

"No!" And now the denial had the strength of truth. "I gave myself to Riveda of my free will, and he is not by law celibate!"

"This is so; but why then does he not take you to wife, or at the very least acknowledge your child?" Domaris demanded, stern-faced. "There is no need of this, Deoris. You bear the child of one of the great Adepts—no matter what I may think of him. You should walk in honor before all, not skulk girdled with a triple cord, forced to lie even to me. Enslaved! Does he know?"

"I—I think... ."

"You think!" Domaris's voice was as brittle as ice. "Be assured, little sister, if he does not know, he very soon shall! Child, child—the man wrongs you!"

"You—you have no right to interfere!" With a sudden burst of strength, Deoris twisted free of her sister, glaring angrily though she made no move to go.

"I do have the right to protect you, little sister."

"If I choose to bear Riveda's child ..."

"Then Riveda must assume his responsibility," said Domaris sharply. Her hands went out to the girdle at her sister's waist again. "As for this foul thing . . ." Her fingers shrank from the emblems even as they plucked at the knotted cords. "I am going to burn it! My sister is no man's slave!"

Deoris sprang up, clutching at the links. "Now you go too far!" she raged, and seized the woman's wrist in strong hands, holding Domaris away from her. "You shall not touch it!"

"Deoris, I insist!"

"No, I say!" Though she looked frail, Deoris was a strong girl, and too angry to care what she did. She flung Domaris away from her with a furious blow that made the older woman cry out with pain. "Let me alone!"

Domaris dropped her hands—then gasped as her knees gave way.

Deoris quickly caught her sister in her arms, just in time to save her from falling heavily. "Domaris," she begged, in swift repentance, "Domaris, forgive me. Did I hurt you?"

Domaris, with repressed anger, freed herself from her sister's supporting arm and lowered herself slowly onto the divan.

Deoris began to sob. "I didn't mean to hurt you, you know I'd never... ."

"How can I know that!" Domaris flung at her, almost despairingly. "I have never forgotten what you ..." She stopped, breathing hard. Micon had made her swear never to speak of that, impressing it on her repeatedly that Deoris had not had, would never have, the slightest memory of what she had almost done. At the stricken misery in Deoris's eyes, Domaris said, more gently, "I know you would never harm me willingly. But if you hurt my child I could not forgive you again: Now—give me that damned thing!" And she advanced on Deoris purposefully, her face one of disgust as she unfastened the cords, as if she touched something unclean.

The thin nightdress fell away as the girdle was loosened, and Domaris, putting out a hand to draw the folds together, stopped—jerked her hand back involuntarily from the bared breast. The girdle fell unheeded to the floor.

"Deoris!" she cried out in horror. "Let me see—no, I said let me see!" Her voice tightened commandingly as Deoris tried to pull the loosened robe over the betrayal of those naked scars. Domaris drew the folds aside; gently touched the raised sigil that gaped raggedly red across both rounded breasts, running swollen and raw like a jagged parody of a lightning-flash down the tender sides. "Oh, Deoris!" Domaris gasped in dismay. "Oh, little sister!"

"No, please, Domaris!" The girl pulled feverishly at her loosened clothing. "It's nothing ..." But her frantic efforts at concealment only confirmed Domaris's worst suspicions.

"Nothing, indeed!" said Domaris wrathfully. "I suppose you will try to tell me that those are ordinary burns? More of Riveda's work, I suppose!" She loosed her grip on the girl's arm, staring somberly at her. "Riveda's work. Always Riveda," she whispered, looking down at the cowering girl ... Then, slowly, deliberately, she raised her arms in invocation, and her voice, low and quiveringly clear, rang through the silent room: "Be he accurst!"

Deoris started back, raising her hands to her mouth as she stared in horror.

"Be he accurst!" Domaris repeated. "Accurst in the lightning that reveals his work, accurst in thunder that will lay it low! Be he accurst in the waters of the flood that shall sweep his life sterile! Be he cursed by sun and moon and earth, rising and setting, waking and sleeping, living and dying, here and hereafter! Be he accurst beyond life and beyond death and beyond redemption—forever!"