Against the blinding brazen glare of the African sky the green tops of the palms of the oasis of Tel-el-kelb waved gratefully and threw their precious shade over the white tents clustered at their feet. It was high noon and the heat, here, away from the magic breeze that is always found on the Nile, was intense.

It was a large encampment altogether, the low brown canvas tents at the back, far in the grove of palms, indicating the servants' quarters, the higher and larger white ones, grouped together more towards the edge of the trees, showed European comfort in the midst of their severe simplicity.

At the door of the largest white tent sat Regina, looking out with her clear blue eyes, gazing from the wavering shadow of the palms far into the sunlit distances of the desert that stretched away in limitless tawny ripples to the far horizon, broken here and there by exquisite shallow lakes of azure surrounded by black rocks and stunted trees which mirrored themselves in the shining water.

Ah, those lakes!—those wonderful lakes of the desert, which, when one walks towards them, vanish utterly, and on the spot where they have been—shining water, rocks and trees—looks up to mock one only the glittering yellow sand. The mirage of the desert, how wonderful it is. It had for Regina a fascination, a magnetic influence upon her that she could neither explain nor resist. It seemed she could never tire of gazing out on those magic shining phantom waters of the waste. She looked very pale as she sat there, her chin leaning on her hand, her elbow on her knee, across which rested the deadly little rifle. She wore a short brown canvas skirt reaching only to her knees; below the beautifully moulded calves and ankles were encased in brown gaiters fitting tightly over the tops of her neat, low-heeled boots. A loose blouse of the same colour was drawn in tightly by the heavy belt full of cartridges that enclosed her waist. She was wearing no hat and the yellow light flung up from the sanded floor turned her hair into soft gold above the pallor of her face.

A month, she was thinking, had gone by since Sybil had joined them, and they had all gone into camp. And how she had suffered in those thirty days! A little at first and then more and more with each day that passed, a long and terrible crescendo, as it were, of suffering.

The girl had come out, as Regina had thought, and as she now knew, with the deliberate intention of taking Everest away from her, and she had pursued this plan with a callousness and an ingenuity that was simply inconceivable. The extreme cleverness of all her tactics seemed to Regina wonderful in a person who, outside this one idea, appeared to have absolutely no brains at all.

The main feature of her scheme was an excessive amiability towards Regina, nothing could exceed her apparent admiration, affection and respect for her. And by this attitude, from the first, she completely disarmed Everest, as Regina recognised with a deep pain in her heart. Clever and keen as he usually was in penetrating most people's masks and shams, and understanding their real motives and feelings, he seemed to be completely deceived by this girl's clever acting. It was so well done, never overdone, but always perfectly even, natural and genuine, that Regina, to a certain extent, understood this. Any man, lacking as he does the keen female intuitive instinct about these things, would have been deceived in the same way. It was always "What would Mrs. Lanark like?" when any expedition was proposed, anything suggested, and a charming turn of the golden head with a world of affectionate inquiry in the blue eyes. "Would you like to go out," or "Are you tired, dear, after yesterday?" and so on, and Regina saw no other way than to accept all this poisonous affection and be gentle and amiable in return.

Everest, who would have resented the least discourtesy towards Regina, began to feel in this way an attraction towards the pretty, fairy-like creature who was so devoted to the woman he loved, and quite lost his suspicions that she would make mischief and disagreement in the camp.

To Everest himself she was submission and flattery personified. She listened devoutly to all he said, never held a contrary opinion to his, was always willing to adapt herself to his or Regina's wishes. She would do this or that which was convenient, either stay in camp or go with them; ride whatever was provided for her, do whatever was desired, and in the evenings sang and played divinely on the guitar which she had brought with her. Her beauty seemed to increase daily, and to Regina the reason for this was perfectly clear. She was playing a most exciting, difficult and successful game, and the excitement and joy of it lent to her that peculiar beauty of intense animation which no other can equal.

There was no doubt that she coveted Everest personally, with all the force of which she was capable, and Nature is always on the side of any individual fighting for a mate. She lends beauty and charm to the female as she lends power and magnetism to the male.

And Everest closely in contact with this young, beautiful, insistent woman, who was new to him, felt that transient sensory desire for her which is a purely natural spontaneous impulse in natures like his, full to the brim of energy and vigour, possessing both far in excess of the demands of daily life.

His love for Regina went very deep into his whole organisation, and his power of self-control was strong, therefore had he realised at the first that he was going to do anything to make his idol unhappy he would have strenuously resisted the new invading passion. But, as in all these cases the beginnings are imperceptible, the slope of the hill is far slipped down by the unwary feet before they even feel they are descending.

In this case Sybil had masked her advances with infinite care. Of course there could be no love-making, no flirtation, between them now. He was a married man, she knew, bound to that lovely and exquisite Regina for ever and ever; but there could be such a nice camaraderie between them; they were such old friends and cousins, and cousins might kiss each other, as they had always done, and her kisses were cousinly little things at first, so that, without in the least alarming him at the beginning, she established forms of intimacy that gradually afterwards she could fill with passion.

When he awoke to the passion in them it was too late: it had set fire to his own; he knew that he wanted those kisses, desired them, as he did the woman herself!

It is useless for those who read this record to frown and scowl and talk of his love for Regina and regard him as a monster because, while loving and possessing her, he desired another. His love for Regina had nothing to do with the question. One might as well argue that because one dines every night at home one never wants to dine out with a friend.

The idea of replacing Regina with Sybil never occurred to him. Regina was for him something he could never part with, a portion of his own life. All the feelings for her were so deep, so real, so intertwisted with the mental emotions, it was impossible to compare them with those for Sybil. But she had the amazing power of novelty on her side; she had that charm for Everest that the unlearned language has for the student, the unknown country for the explorer; and when Regina at last appealed to him about the matter, he suddenly realised that the presence of Sybil, her society, the sight of her, her kisses, gave him a keen pleasure that now he did not at all wish to give up.

The first time that Regina spoke to him of her own pain and distress was in their tent at night, alone, and Everest had come up to her and taken her into his arms.

"Dear little girl, how can you be so foolish? There is no one in the world for me except yourself."

And this was quite true, for Everest had never felt for any woman the same feelings as he had done for her, and it never occurred to him that he could ever part with her. But the curious pleasure that his cousin's face gave him, the momentary physical delight of her kiss, the joy of putting his arm round the tiny form and seeing her little teeth gleam in a smile upon him, all these were very dear to him, though he did not ever dream of her in any lasting relationship.

When Everest was alone he often wondered himself how it was that, knowing so well and disliking so greatly, as he did, this woman's character and all her mentality, the physical charm of her presence, the sound, sight and touch of her could give so much pleasure. It seemed almost sometimes as if the fact that there was little sympathy, almost no point of union, between them, no attraction except the physical, seemed to heighten that physical attraction, increase its power. He knew perfectly well that, in order to please Regina and preserve her happiness, he ought to annihilate this new passion, which, insignificant as it really was with reference to his life as a whole, for the moment gave him so much pleasure; but then, was he bound to do this, he asked himself. How far do the rights of others go? How far ought he to deny himself, sacrifice himself that she might enjoy to the full her life, instead of him enjoying his?

She had given him the extreme of pleasure, it is true, but in return he had laid everything he had at her feet. That she had not accepted his gifts in full was not his fault. He had not withdrawn any of them, nor ever would. The first place in his life, in his soul, was for her. Then they were equally in debt to each other, and now what was to be done? He wanted to enjoy this new pleasure, have this new excitement, and not being in any way an ideal character, but only an extremely passionate and rather selfish individual with some few delightful traits, he determined to take it—determined, that is to say, in that vague and indefinite manner that one always determines such things, driven by physical impulses, led by forces of which we know nothing, compelled by unseen powers, like the helpless, whirling leaf before the gale. There was no deliberate purpose, plan or intention. Imperceptibly he had grown interested in Sybil's playing and singing after dinner; her quaint, inconsequent prattle in its novelty amused him, though he quite well recognised it would be intolerable once its newness had worn off, her face from its great beauty of line had always pleased him immensely, her ardent kiss, with those exquisitely carved scarlet lips, had shaken his reason, and so from out of all these had grown gradually desire, which is merciless, blind, relentless, savage, quick in its onward rush, rapid in its disappearance as any desert lion.

Regina sat at her tent door and thought over all these things, and the burnished glory of the golden desert swam before her in a mist of tears.

She had not read and studied and thought as she had without acquiring that philosophy that knowledge gives, but no philosophy could help her against the deadly pain now of her daily life. As far as the shooting went, the camp up till now had not been a success. Small game and birds of every sort and kind there were in limitless numbers, but the lion district, according to their native guides, was always somewhere beyond. This range of hills, that ridge to the west, the lions had always retreated there, but when the whole party had duly packed and moved there, the new camp on the range of hills or on the western ridge was equally devoid of lion.

The men, except Everest, went out every day and shot what they could find, largely antelope, but Everest always having been prompted by his own nature against the taking of defenceless life, since his intimacy with Regina, had lost all desire or capability of doing it. If they came upon a lion he would shoot, the sporting chance was equal there, the danger shared, the game well able to look after itself; but with the taking of the beautiful innocent life which abounded all round them he would have nothing to do. Regina revolted utterly from it, and would never visit the large tent at the back of the camp where the antelope were hung and the flamingo flung in heaps, dead and dying together, their exquisite plumage making it seem as if a sunset cloud had fallen there.

At first Everest and Regina had spent together a great deal of the time painting, and Sybil, who, though she could not hold a rifle straight herself, had no objection to seeing things killed, accompanied her brother and the others on their shoots. But latterly Everest had cared less about the sketching and had taken Sybil for camel rides in the desert, rides in which Regina could have joined had she been able to force herself to the pain of witnessing Everest's pleasure as he lifted his cousin on and off her camel, and the passion in his eyes as he spoke to and smiled upon her.

They had gone out to-day, and Regina had stayed in camp and practised her shooting all the morning. She could talk with the natives and she understood they were nearing the lion district, and she ardently longed if any occasion arose in which she could put her skill at Everest's service, or in his defence, to have it at her command, to show him all those dear lessons in the past happy time were not given in vain. She had shot splendidly. Not a single mark out of any of those which she had set herself had she missed, and her nerves, so excitable by all mental emotions, seemed to calm and steady themselves when her fingers closed on a rifle as they did when they took up her paint-brush.

Now she was tired, and she sat waiting for them to return, for the exquisitely painful pleasure of Everest's kiss, knowing that his lips had only recently left another's.

All the other three men were more or less in love with her in varying degrees, rather to Everest's amusement, but she only entertained a sick antipathy towards them and their blood-stained hands and clothes, such as any ordinary person feels on meeting a butcher coming out of his shambles.

She insisted that they should come moderately clean to the dining tent and that the conversation at dinner should not be upon wounding and crippling, death agonies and blinded eyes and mangling shots, and as Everest backed her up in this they had to submit.

Immediately after dinner she withdrew to her own tent, leaving them to their smoking and brandy-drinking and their talk of blood and death. And sitting there alone, she could hear the soft tinkle of the guitar and the pretty girlish voice singing love songs under the palms where Sybil had gone, and where Everest, wearied also by the drinking, smoking and conversation in which he did not care to take a part, had followed her. How she suffered! Like a bodily illness, the sickness of jealousy seems to diffuse paralysing pain throughout the whole system.

Yet after that hour, or sometimes half-an-hour, of misery, when Everest himself came to the tent, and raising the door flap stepped inside, she rose to meet him with a smile and waves of intense happiness vibrated through her as her eyes took in his image. The sight of him, his presence near her had still that same tremendous power over her that it had had from the first. The sharp contrast that he presented to the other men they were now with seemed to heighten still further the effect upon her senses. When he came in, pale and calm as usual, his clear skin fresh and cool from the outside air, his dark eyes full of fire, and approached her, willing to kiss and caress her, she knew she must forgive him everything, she wanted and desired him too much to do anything else. How different he seemed from the thick-skinned, burnt-faced, heavy-eyed men she had left in the dining tent, flushed with over-eating and drinking, soaked through with the scent of tobacco and brandy and of old blood on their clothes and of grease and mud on their shooting boots. Had they been models of fidelity and all the domestic virtues she would not have let one kiss her, hardly to save her life, so violently did they in themselves outrage her Æsthetic sense, but by Everest, if she were mentally hurt and wounded, yet the physical compensations in himself were so overwhelming that she could not do otherwise than go on loving him, through all her suffering. Everest never came to her in the condition—dirty, untidy, smoky, semi-fuddled—that these men seemed to live in, if, indeed, he was ever in that condition at all, which seemed impossible in connection with him. The order and beauty of his rooms that had so intensified her love for him when she surprised him in London seemed always to be part of his person, his clothes, his atmosphere. Without ever in the least seeming to care about his dress or be conscious of his looks, he always seemed to be clean, well-attired, fresh, alert-eyed, as an officer going on parade.

And often in those night vigils, when the bitter gall of jealousy had risen to the brim of her nature and anger burnt in all her veins and a torrent of lava-like words waited on her tongue, and her brain seethed with madness, when he really came to her, all possible reproaches slipped from her mind; she felt only inclined to fall upon her knees before him, as a slave girl before an emperor, and tell him how much she worshipped him.

As she sat now looking into the golden haze of the distance, which reddened softly as the sunset hour approached, she saw the light veils of dust rising which meant the nearing of the home-coming party, and she rose and retreated into her own tent. She guessed that Sybil and Everest would be riding together and she did not wish to see it. She found that when she did not actually see them together she suffered less. She knew with her reason that much of what so hurt her senses, looks, smiles, tones, even caresses, from a man of his nature, really meant very little, and therefore when her eyes and ears were not pained by them she was less disturbed. Behind these two would come the three sportsmen, and then all the horrid procession of limp, blood-covered bodies, masses of beautiful dead birds carried along by the troop of servants. That she did not wish to see either. So she retreated into the shadow and shelter of her tent and pulled down the door flap, knowing that Everest would come in when Sybil had dismounted and gone to her tent, and the three men with their spoils and their attendants had disappeared to the gun-room tent at the back.

She set her rifle in the corner after unloading it and slipped off her belt of cartridges, as it is hardly a comfortable adjunct to one's clothing in a close embrace, and while she did so she heard all the noise without of the return, the snuffing of the camels, the barking of dogs, the chatter of the natives, the dragging of the heavy antelope on the sand, and the scent of blood and dust came to her nostrils through all the chinks of the tent.

She waited some time, but Everest did not come, and the sounds subsided outside. As all grew quiet again, she lifted a little window flap that was at one side of the tent and looked out into the green shade of the palm. Her heart gave a great bound and then seemed to stand still and tremble as a stricken deer. They were standing there, not twenty yards away, Sybil and Everest, their hands in each other's, apparently about to part. The girl's fair, pale face lifted to his showed distinctly against the deep shadow behind her.

Regina looked at Everest, and a sudden fury like the hot smoke of a fire rose over all her brain. A panting thirst after something not defined stirred in all her blood, and then came the query, like a voice in a dream: "Why not end this? Why not kill her?" She could do it so easily now as she stood there, a perfect mark for Regina, who could pierce a cactus leaf through the exact centre at twenty yards. She was very near to Everest, it was true, but Regina knew her aim so well—that calm white oval against the green. She could send a shot from her pistol out of the tent that would find it and shatter it for ever.

Without knowing it, in that instant of frightful jealous rage, her feet had carried her across the tent, her fingers had clasped her pistol and drawn it from her belt. Swift and silent as a shadow she was back at the little window; they were still there, nearer each other, that was all. She cocked the revolver and aimed it so that she covered the delicate and perfect carving of that pale disk beneath the trees. Then her true self woke suddenly and rushed upon her, and her hand dropped to her side.

How mad, how foolish her impulse had been! Better turn the pistol on herself than that. Death was far better than to live dishonoured, burdened with the blood of another. Sybil had injured her enough already. She should not turn her into a murderess; besides, death or injury to Sybil meant suffering for Everest, and in her wildest moments she had no wish to cause him pain or distress. To her, an object once loved was sacred. No faintest thought of revenge on him ever came near her mind.

He had offered to bind himself to her and she had refused. She had wished him to be free. Well then, how illogical, how absurd her attitude now, like that of a pettish child.

She closed the flap of the tent and sank down on the side of the bed and buried her face in her hands, lost in a sense of humiliation and self-condemnation.

Here Everest found her when he came in, and as she looked up and saw him enter, smiling and full of life, a sense of joy came to her that no mad act of hers had brought misery upon him and so upon them both. She rose as he approached her. She was very white, but she smiled up at him as she saw the look of concern come into his face.

"You look so pale. Do you feel ill? Is the heat too much for you?" he exclaimed anxiously.

"No; I am quite well. I always get dull and miss you when you are out, that is all," she answered. She would not speak to him of Sybil. She knew in matters of love coercion is useless, words are useless, everything is useless. Like a malady, like a sickness, desire drifts across the brain and runs its course. Sometimes the sufferer dies, but more often he recovers and asks: "Was I ever ill?"

She took up the pistol and put it back in its place and busied herself with making tea for him, and all the time her mind was recalling the exquisite lines of Sophocles on love: "Like the icicle lying in the hot hand of the wondering boy it diminishes and vanishes even while he gazes on it and the harder, the tighter, he clasps it, the more rapidly does it disappear."

Day after miserable day went by for Regina, while the hate, which was wholly alien to her nature, for Sybil grew within her, and like some horrible physical growth hurt and oppressed her in the growing and seemed to poison her whole organisation.

If she could only have known clearly what Everest's feelings were; but he would not speak on the subject. He had admitted that he desired the girl, and all his assurances that nothing could affect his love for Regina might be merely to comfort her. At the best he wanted something that, but for her presence, he could and would have obtained. And to Regina her own duty, her course of conduct was not clear. She had brought with her into camp a few books, and among them "Anna Lombard," which she read and reread, finding in the position of Gerald Ethridge some reflection of her own. But to her, her situation seemed more difficult, her duty more obscure than his, for in Gerald's case he felt convinced that Anna's love for the Pathan could not bring her happiness, and therefore he could believe himself justified in trying his utmost to turn her from it, but here the torturing thought would ever present itself to Regina that Sybil had every quality to fit her to be Everest's wife. She might well hold herself to be in the right and Regina in the wrong. She could bring to the man she married a large dower, noble rank, lands, old name. She was the bride picked out and selected for him by his own family and people, and now he himself desired her. In utter anguish of soul Regina asked herself again and again why was she standing between? The girl was beautiful too, and though, to Regina, the extreme disproportion of size between the cousins jarred and seemed unnatural, yet she had to admit that Nature worked that way, constantly making the male seek his opposite in his mate, so that the average of the type may be maintained.

She hated Sybil with the fierce natural hate of any human being for another who robs and despoils him of his dearest possessions, but logically she could not defend that hatred of her. In the eyes of the world she knew that Sybil and not herself would be given the better title to Everest.

If she could only have known what he thought, what he felt! If she could only have penetrated the mystery that had grown up round his feelings and relations to his cousin! But like all men he would not speak definitely or clearly to her about it. That silence of men! How much it has to account for! We have all heard of the crimes without number traced to and excused by the celebrated habit of "nagging" which belongs to women. No condemnation is too severe for it. No sympathy too excessive to be given to the male sufferers from it. But what of that dogged brutal silence of men that corrodes and eats into the sensitive, excitable brain of a woman? For how many murders and suicides has that not been accountable?

In the whole world there is no lash more effective, no vitriol more corrosive than this silence in which men cloak their various infamies.

Everest had been far more outspoken than most men would have been, but he also, as the days went by, seemed to grow more reserved, more silent. A sort of abstraction seemed to enclose him, and often after a day's expedition, in the evening, when they had gone to their own tent—those evenings which formerly had been so dear to her—he would lie down on the camp sofa and fall apparently into a reverie which left him hardly conscious of her presence. Looking at him she could see his face had a pained, abstracted pallor on it. She could not tell of what he was thinking, but she knew that he was desiring another and that she stood between.

And the strain of all this was so great that it seemed to her she must escape from it or go mad. But there was no escape for any of them from each other. Like a lot of hostile animals in a cage, they were shut up together in the camp to quarrel as they chose, and on all sides the sandy waste hemmed them in.

One day she went out a little way from her tent with her easel and colours. She was alone. St John, James and Graham had gone out quite early, and Everest and Sybil, after luncheon, had strolled away together among the palms. She did not know where they had gone, nor did it matter. She never sought to spy upon them or follow them or to see where they went or what they did. The fact that Everest wished to be with the girl was all that mattered. The intense bitterness of this knowledge was so overwhelming that all detail of pain and distress was lost in it.

To-day, left alone in the suffocating heat of midday in the tent, with nothing but her hatred of Sybil, her passion for Everest and her sick misery in the present situation for companion, she felt as if her brain would give way.

She must get out, under the open sky, in the shade of the grove, and perhaps she could lose herself temporarily in some inspiration. She must, in some way, break up the maddening circle of her thoughts. Suppose she lost her reason and killed or injured Everest! The mere thought filled her with cold horror and fear. Never, never, never, whatever he did, however he made her suffer, would she in her sane moments retaliate, never could she hurt or harm this man who had given her so much happiness. But after all the brain is an unstable thing—she would not know what she did if the veil of madness were suddenly drawn over it.

Oppressed by this new thought, she gathered her painting materials together and wandered slowly through her tent door towards the shadiest part of the grove.

There were two palms leaning a little together which caught her eye, and between them a tiny brown tent by a clump of banana-trees, the whole forming a little picture in glowing light and wavering shade, and she dropped down here, weary and heart-sick, putting up her easel and trying to set her mind upon her work.

Her talent was so great that even in that state of pain and suffering her hand obeyed her will almost mechanically, and she soon had the whole sketched in on the paper.

She was just commencing the colouring when she heard voices close to her and quivered and grew deadly pale as she recognised Everest's and its gentle tones.

"I do love you so much," she heard Sybil's voice saying, "and you are beginning to love me too, now just a little, do say you do?"

And Everest answered:

"Does this not seem like it." And just at that moment the two figures came in view round a palm close to those under which she was sitting, and she saw him bend over the girl and kiss her.

Regina had seen them kiss before, as Sybil had insisted on these cousinly habits from the first, but this was a different thing. This was neither a greeting nor a leave-taking. It was the kiss of pleasure, prompted by passion, sought for by the man.

Regina felt absolutely paralysed by the agony of witnessing it. She could not move, and for a moment could hardly breathe. Like those who looked on the Gorgon's head, she felt turning into stone.

As Everest raised his head after their kiss they both saw her. They could not do otherwise, opposite her and only a few yards away. All three for the first second remained rigid and staring, then Sybil burst away with a half scream. Everest let her go, not seeming to notice her as she ran towards the camp. He stood for a moment where he was, then he walked up to Regina.

The colour burned in the clear cheek, his eyes were kindling with excitement and anger. He looked splendidly, cruelly handsome as he approached her. She could not move. Fascinated like a little kid put into the python's cage, she stared at him as he came up.

"Regina!" there was a sharp ring of annoyance and anger in his voice. He expected reproaches, some outburst, but no sound came from her. She gazed upon him quite silently, her blue eyes looking black and burning in the deadly white of her face.

Everest loved her so dearly that he could not bear to face the anguish of that gaze. He came a step nearer, then, with his natural easy grace, threw himself on the ground beside her.

"Regina! Darling! It is nothing! Kisses like those are nothing! Do not worry yourself or make yourself ill over them. You know, better than most women, what men are, men of my temperament especially. I don't want to lie to you, nor to deceive you, but I don't want you to think things are worse than they are. Speak to me! Say you forgive me, dear one."

At these words, in the loved voice that ruled all her being, Regina burst suddenly into tears and let him draw her up to him, her tired head, weary with much pondering over the same painful idea, sank against his breast and she continued to sob and sob there.

"There is no question of my forgiving," she said at last through her tears. "The whole thing is in your hands. You do want this girl, I suppose; you do desire her?"

Everest laughed a little as he stroked her hair.

"In a way, perhaps, yes, just now. It is difficult for me not to desire any beautiful woman who tells me she loves me. I am not accustomed to resisting them, I'm afraid. The position with Sybil is getting quite impossible. I will end it as soon as I can."

"But what would you like to do about her? For yourself?"

"Do not let us discuss her any more," he responded, kissing her hair. "I want you to trust me and know that the matter between her and me does not and will not in any way affect our relationship. Will you do that?" And what could Regina say or do but assent and let him kiss away her tears.

"Come," he added, after a minute, "let us go out of the grove. It's quite cool now, we can walk easily."

Regina rose at once. It would be a joy to be out with him in the open, away from the hateful camp. Everest called up a servant and told him to pack up carefully and take into the tent Regina's easel and drawing. Then he slipped his arm through hers and they walked through the palms towards the gleaming gold of the desert. The oasis was just like a great temple, she thought, with the straight stems of the trees rising on all sides like pillars to support the roof, and the blue and gold of sand and sky lay beyond its cool green shade, as if beyond an open portal.

The light was full of rose colour, and the whole desert before them looked palely pink as they emerged from the grove. Each tiny wavelet of the gigantic sea of sand was rose-tinted on its crest and softly mauve in its rounded hollow. The sky was still a glorious sapphire-blue, but transforming slowly into golden orange and across the transparent light of the west winged in joyous flight a band of flamingoes, wonderful in their exquisite salmon-pink and flame-coloured plumage. The calmness, the delight of the evening hour was on all around.

"How lovely this is!" Regina exclaimed. "And I feel so happy whenever I am alone with you. It seems like the enchanted garden days again. Oh, Everest, I am so grieved that this girl has come between us and that you care about her as you do."

"Who can understand the mystery of our own hearts?" he answered bitterly. "They are just like this desert, full of the bright shining mirage of hope, and the oasis of beauty, and infested with the lions of passion and desire that are always prowling there in the darkness."

Regina looked up at him as he walked beside her. How well he knew life and spoke of it. Had not his passion for her sprung into her life suddenly as a lion and devoured her, and now perhaps was passing on, leaving her broken and destroyed as the mangled remains of a kid on the sand where a lion has fed. But yet he had led her to those oases and she had drunk deeply there of the sweetest waters of life, and he had shown her the shining mirage and dazzled her eyes with those beautiful phantom images she never could have seen without him. Yes, he was like the desert, and she could not hate him any more than man can hate the desert, in spite of its cruelty and the death it deals out to them. Deeply, marvellously pink, lower and lower, fell the light, like a mantle dropping on them and the face of the waste. They paused and looked back to the encampment. Palms and tents and the figures of the men and the feeding camels, all looked as if cut out of ruby, all in lustrous glowing red against the pale warm gold background of the sky. They sat down on a rising mound of the rippling sand, and he put his arm round her and drew her close to him till her head found its resting-place on his shoulder, and they were quite silent, fearing that any word should mar the deep hush, the infinite peace that seemed falling like a benediction from that far-arched crystal sky, and over the girl's brain came softly the lines of an old French song she had noted somewhere in her reading:

And while she was resolving that never should that bitterness live in her heart for him, no matter what his crimes against her, he was questioning within himself why and how it was that, loving this woman as he did, this curious wild gust of emotion should have swayed him to another. He disliked Sybil, he had always done so. For years she had courted him in vain, and yet and yet, the sight of those lines of her ivory face, whenever he saw them, seemed to throw madness through all his veins. It would tear his heart in two to give up Regina, not for any reason on earth would he have parted with her, but like the deadly thirst that comes on a man after drinking alkali water and drives him back to drink of the poisonous thing again, his desire held him and lived with him against his will.

The rose light faded and died and twilight came up over the desert like a violet flood. Very slowly and lingeringly they rose and walked back to the tent together, as the fires of the camp were beginning to sparkle amongst the trees.

That same night Regina woke suddenly between the hour of midnight and dawn and sat up in bed with a wild fluttering at her heart. For a moment the bodily faintness, the whole strange series of physical feeling, was so great, she was not conscious of anything else. She turned to Everest for help and then saw she was alone. The bed and tent were alike empty, brilliant with the moonlight that poured through the canvas, bright as day.

Sick, dizzy and confused she sat up, gasping. Then a great joy vibrated suddenly all through her. It was true then. She felt convinced now that her unsubstantial hopes and thoughts were verified. A great delight filled her, the scene of the enchanted garden rushed back upon her and Everest's words. Now she might tell him, she could not be in doubt any longer.

Where was he, she wondered. All the faintness seemed to have passed again as suddenly as it came, all the cloud of bodily sensation to have whirled by. She only felt a great sense of happiness, an eagerness to share it with him.

She rose and found her dressing-gown and a pair of shoes and crossed the tent, all filled with white light, to the door, pulled aside the flap and looked out. It was a very still night, the palms lifted their feathery tops in stately majesty against the glorious purple of the star-filled sky without a quiver of the lightest leaf, their shadows lay in velvety blackness on the silvered golden of the sand. Not a sound disturbed the deep silence; the air came to her light and pure and cool. Beyond the palm grove, far out into the limitless distance she could see the desert roll like a rippling silver sea beneath the moon rays.

As she stood there something moved, a shadow fell on the sand some fifty yards away from the tent door and then she saw Everest's figure walking slowly as if he were pacing up and down. Beyond him she could see the closed faces of two other tents, they were those of Sybil and her brother. In an instant the scene of the afternoon and its whole import came back to her, and she held suddenly the canvas edge of the door in her cold hand. She looked at the moving figure closely. Up and down, up and down it walked and she could see his hands were clenched sometimes at his sides and sometimes one hand would be raised and drawn across his eyes as if to clear away some painful thought.

Regina turned from the door and found her way back trembling to the bed. She could not tell him now. It was too late. What a bitter irony of fate! What a cruel mockery to send her certainty now, when her lips were closed and he was only thinking of and desiring another! She reached the bed and threw herself upon it in a passion of bitter tears. All their talk, their own dear intimate conversations, came back upon her like knives cutting into her brain. How she had looked forward to the joy it would give him! How she had dreamed of the expression that would cross his beautiful face! How she had cherished the idea of this pleasure she had in store for him! And now, how could she tell? It would, perhaps, be no pleasure, it would bring to him only a sense of bondage, a feeling that he was bound. Already he was pacing there, tortured by thoughts as pitiless and savage as the desert lions, already he was torn between his honour and his desire. Should she add to his burden?—carry out to him a chain and fetter with which to bind his feet already longing perhaps to go from her? No, a hundred times no; not now. The happy secret, the joyous hope transformed into bitter pain, she would lock up in her own breast as long as she could.

If she could have but told him sooner! If she could have had that delight in London before they left, or on board that magic boat he had fitted up for her! The intense joy of it then! Would it have made any difference, she wondered. No; nothing, she thought, would have helped her.

Everest did not come back, she lay in the silver light of the tent alone, in an agony of grief and pain; her pillow drenched with tears.