Domini had said to herself that she would speak to her husband that night. She was resolved not to hesitate, not to be influenced from her purpose by anything. Yet she knew that a great difficulty would stand in her way—the difficulty of Androvsky’s intense, almost passionate, reserve. This reserve was the dominant characteristic in his nature. She thought of it sometimes as a wall of fire that he had set round about the secret places of his soul to protect them even from her eyes. Perhaps it was strange that she, a woman of a singularly frank temperament, should be attracted by reserve in another, yet she knew that she was so attracted by the reserve of her husband. Its existence hinted to her depths in him which, perhaps, some day she might sound, she alone, strength which was hidden for her some day to prove.

Now, alone with her purpose, she thought of this reserve. Would she be able to break it down with her love? For an instant she felt as if she were about to enter upon a contest with her husband, but she did not coldly tell over her armoury and select weapons. There was a heat of purpose within her that beckoned her to the unthinking, to the reckless way, that told her to be self-reliant and to trust to the moment for the method.

When Androvsky returned to the camp it was towards evening. A lemon light was falling over the great white spaces of the sand. Upon their little round hills the Arab villages glowed mysteriously. Many horsemen were riding forth from the city to take the cool of the approaching night. From the desert the caravans were coming in. The nomad children played, half-naked, at Cora before the tents, calling shrilly to each other through the light silence that floated airily away into the vast distances that breathed out the spirit of a pale eternity. Despite the heat there was an almost wintry romance in this strange land of white sands and yellow radiance, an ethereal melancholy that stole with the twilight noiselessly towards the tents.

As Androvsky approached Domini saw that he had lost the energy which had delighted her at dejeuner. He walked towards her slowly with his head bent down. His face was grave, even sad, though when he saw her waiting for him he smiled.

“You have been all this time with the priest?” she said.

“Nearly all. I walked for a little while in the city. And you?”

“I rode out and met a friend.”

“A friend?” he said, as if startled.

“Yes, from Beni-Mora—Count Anteoni. He has been here to pay me a visit.”

She pulled forward a basket-chair for him. He sank into it heavily.

“Count Anteoni here!” he said slowly. “What is he doing here?”

“He is with the marabout at Beni-Hassan. And, Boris, he has become a Mohammedan.”

He lifted his head with a jerk and stared at her in silence.

“You are surprised?”

“A Mohammedan—Count Anteoni?”

“Yes. Do you know, when he told me I felt almost as if I had been expecting it.”

“But—is he changed then? Is he—”

He stopped. His voice had sounded to her bitter, almost fierce.

“Yes, Boris, he is changed. Have you ever seen anyone who was lost, and the same person walking along the road home? Well, that is Count Anteoni.”

They said no more for some minutes. Androvsky was the first to speak again.

“You told him?” he asked.

“About ourselves?”

“Yes.”

“I told him.”

“What did he say?”

“He had expected it. When we ask him he is coming here again to see us both together.”

Androvsky got up from his chair. His face was troubled. Standing before Domini, he said:

“Count Anteoni is happy then, now that he—now that he has joined this religion?”

“Very happy.”

“And you—a Catholic—what do you think?”

“I think that, since that is his honest belief, it is a blessed thing for him.”

He said no more, but went towards the sleeping-tent.

In the evening, when they were dining, he said to her:

“Domini, to-night I am going to leave you again for a short time.”

He saw a look of keen regret come into her face, and added quickly:

“At nine I have promised to go to see the priest. He—he is rather lonely here. He wants me to come. Do you mind?”

“No, no. I am glad—very glad. Have you finished?”

“Quite.”

“Let us take a rug and go out a little way in the sand—that way towards the cemetery. It is quiet there at night.”

“Yes. I will get a rug.” He went to fetch it, threw it over his arm, and they set out together. She had meant the Arab cemetery, but when they reached it they found two or three nomads wandering there.

“Let us go on,” she said.

They went on, and came to the French cemetery, which was surrounded by a rough hedge of brushwood, in which there were gaps here and there. Through one of these gaps they entered it, spread out the rug, and lay down on the sand. The night was still and silence brooded here. Faintly they saw the graves of the exiles who had died here and been given to the sand, where in summer vipers glided to and fro, and the pariah dogs wandered stealthily, seeking food to still the desires in their starving bodies. They were mostly very simple, but close to Domini and Androvsky was one of white marble, in the form of a broken column, hung with wreaths of everlasting flowers, and engraved with these words:

ICI REPOSE JEAN BAPTISTE FABRIANI

Priez pour lui.

When they lay down they both looked at this grave, as if moved by a simultaneous impulse, and read the words.

“Priez pour lui!” Domini said in a low voice.

She put out her hand and took hold of her husband’s, and pressed it down on the sand.

“Do you remember that first night, Boris,” she said, “at Arba, when you took my hand in yours and laid it against the desert as against a heart?”

“Yes, Domini, I remember.”

“That night we were one, weren’t we?”

“Yes, Domini.”

“Were we”—she was almost whispering in the night—“were we truly one?”

“Why do you—truly one, you say?”

“Yes—one in soul? That is the great union, greater than the union of our bodies. Were we one in soul? Are we now?”

“Domini, why do you ask me such questions? Do you doubt my love?”

“No. But I do ask you. Won’t you answer me?”

He was silent. His hand lay in hers, but did not press it.

“Boris”—she spoke the cruel words very quietly,—“we are not truly one in soul. We have never been. I know that.”

He said nothing.

“Shall we ever be? Think—if one of us were to die, and the other—the one who was left—were left with the knowledge that in our love, even ours, there had always been separation—could you bear that? Could I bear it?”

“Domini—”

“Yes.”

“Why do you speak like this? We are one. You have all my love. You are everything to me.”

“And yet you are sad, and you try to hide your sadness, your misery, from me. Can you not give it me? I want it—more than I want anything on earth. I want it, I must have it, and I dare to ask for it because I know how deeply you love me and that you could never love another.”

“I never have loved another,” he said.

“I was the very first.”

“The very first. When we married, although I was a man I was as you were.”

She bent down her head and laid her lips on his hand that was in hers.

“Then make our union perfect, as no other union on earth has ever been. Give me your sorrow, Boris. I know what it is.”

“How can—you cannot know,” he said in a broken voice.

“Yes. Love is a diviner, the only true diviner. I told you once what it was, but I want you to tell me. Nothing that we take is beautiful to us, only what we are given.”

“I cannot,” he said.

He tried to take his hand from hers, but she held it fast. And she felt as if she were holding the wall of fire with which he surrounded the secret places of his soul.

“To-day, Boris, when I talked to Count Anteoni, I felt that I had been a coward with you. I had seen you suffer and I had not dared to draw near to your suffering. I have been afraid of you. Think of that.”

“No.”

“Yes, I have been afraid of you, of your reserve. When you withdrew from me I never followed you. If I had, perhaps I could have done something for you.”

“Domini, do not speak like this. Our love is happy. Leave it as it is.”

“I can’t. I will not. Boris, Count Anteoni has found a home. But you are wandering. I can’t bear that, I can’t bear it. It is as if I were sitting in the house, warm, safe, and you were out in the storm. It tortures me. It almost makes me hate my own safety.”

Androvsky shivered. He took his hand forcibly from Domini’s.

“I have almost hated it, too,” he said passionately. “I have hated it. I’m a—I’m—”

His voice failed. He bent forward and took Domini’s face between his hands.

“And yet there are times when I can bless what I have hated. I do bless it now. I—I love your safety. You—at least you are safe.”

“You must share it. I will make you share it.”

“You cannot.”

“I can. I shall. I feel that we shall be together in soul, and perhaps to-night, perhaps even to-night.”

Androvsky looked profoundly agitated. His hands dropped down.

“I must go,” he said. “I must go to the priest.”

He got up from the sand.

“Come to the tent, Domini.”

She rose to her feet.

“When you come back,” she said, “I shall be waiting for you, Boris.”

He looked at her. There was in his eyes a piercing wistfulness. He opened his lips. At that moment Domini felt that he was on the point of telling her all that she longed to know. But the look faded. The lips closed. He took her in his arms and kissed her almost desperately.

“No, no,” he said. “I’ll keep your love—I’ll keep it.”

“You could never lose it.”

“I might.”

“Never.”

“If I believed that.”

“Boris!”

Suddenly burning tears rushed from her eyes.

“Don’t ever say a thing like that to me again!” she said with passion.

She pointed to the grave close to them.

“If you were there,” she said, “and I was living, and you had died before—before you had told me—I believe—God forgive me, but I do believe that if, when you died, I were taken to heaven I should find my hell there.”

She looked through her tears at the words: “Priez pour lui.”

“To pray for the dead,” she whispered, as if to herself. “To pray for my dead—I could not do it—I could not. Boris, if you love me you must trust me, you must give me your sorrow.”

The night drew on. Androvsky had gone to the priest. Domini was alone, sitting before the tent waiting for his return. She had told Batouch and Ouardi that she wanted nothing more, that no one was to come to the tent again that night. The young moon was rising over the city, but its light as yet was faint. It fell upon the cupolas of the Bureau Arabe, the towers of the mosque and the white sands, whose whiteness it seemed to emphasise, making them pale as the face of one terror-stricken. The city wall cast a deep shadow over the moat of sand in which, wrapped in filthy rags, lay nomads sleeping. Upon the sand-hills the camps were alive with movement. Fires blazed and smoke ascended before the tents that made patches of blackness upon the waste. Round the fires were seated groups of men devouring cous-cous and the red soup beloved of the nomad. Behind them circled the dogs with quivering nostrils. Squadrons of camels lay crouched in the sand, resting after their journeys. And everywhere, from the city and from the waste, rose distant sounds of music, thin, aerial flutings like voices of the night winds, acrid cries from the pipes, and the far-off rolling of the African drums that are the foundation of every desert symphony.

Although she was now accustomed to the music of Africa, Domini could never hear it without feeling the barbarity of the land from which it rose, the wildness of the people who made and who loved it. Always it suggested to her an infinite remoteness, as if it were music sounding at the end of the world, full of half-defined meanings, melancholy yet fierce passion, longings that, momentarily satisfied, continually renewed themselves, griefs that were hidden behind thin veils like the women of the East, but that peered out with expressive eyes, hinting their story and desiring assuagement. And tonight the meaning of the music seemed deeper than it had been before. She thought of it as an outside echo of the voices murmuring in her mind and heart, and the voices murmuring in the mind and heart of Androvsky, broken voices some of them, but some strong, fierce, tense and alive with meaning. And as she sat there alone she thought this unity of music drew her closer to the desert than she had ever been before, and drew Androvsky with her, despite his great reserve. In the heart of the desert he would surely let her see at last fully into his heart. When he came back in the night from the priest he would speak. She was waiting for that.

The moon was mounting. Its light grew stronger. She looked across the sands and saw fires in the city, and suddenly she said to herself, “This is the vision of the sand-diviner realised in my life. He saw me as I am now, in this place.” And she remembered the scene in the garden, the crouching figure, the extended arms, the thin fingers tracing swift patterns in the sand, the murmuring voice.

To-night she felt deeply expectant, but almost sad, encompassed by the mystery that hangs in clouds about human life and human relations. What could be that great joy of which the Diviner had spoken? A woman’s great joy that starred the desert with flowers and made the dry places run with sweet waters. What could it be?

Suddenly she felt again the oppression of spirit she had been momentarily conscious of in the afternoon. It was like a load descending upon her, and, almost instantly, communicated itself to her body. She was conscious of a sensation of unusual weariness, uneasiness, even dread, then again of an intensity of life that startled her. This intensity remained, grew in her. It was as if the principle of life, like a fluid, were being poured into her out of the vials of God, as if the little cup that was all she had were too small to contain the precious liquid. That seemed to her to be the cause of the pain of which she was conscious. She was being given more than she felt herself capable of possessing. She got up from her chair, unable to remain still. The movement, slight though it was, seemed to remove a veil of darkness that had hung over her and to let in upon her a flood of light. She caught hold of the canvas of the tent. For a moment she felt weak as a child, then strong as an Amazon. And the sense of strength remained, grew. She walked out upon the sand in the direction by which Androvsky would return. The fires in the city and the camps were to her as illuminations for a festival. The music was the music of a great rejoicing. The vast expanse of the desert, wintry white under the moon, dotted with the fires of the nomads, blossomed as the rose. After a few moments she stopped. She was on the crest of a sand-bank, and could see below her the faint track in the sand which wound to the city gate. By this track Androvsky would surely return. From a long distance she would be able to see him, a moving darkness upon the white. She was near to the city now, and could hear voices coming to her from behind its rugged walls, voices of men singing, and calling one to another, the twang of plucked instruments, the click of negroes’ castanets. The city was full of joy as the desert was full of joy. The glory of life rushed upon her like a flood of gold, that gold of the sun in which thousands of tiny things are dancing. And she was given the power of giving life, of adding to the sum of glory. She looked out over the sands and saw a moving blot upon them coming slowly towards her, very slowly. It was impossible at this distance to see who it was, but she felt that it was her husband. For a moment she thought of going down to meet him, but she did not move. The new knowledge that had come to her made her, just then, feel shy even of him, as if he must come to her, as if she could make no advance towards him.

As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a man walking heavily. The man had her husband’s gait. When she saw that she turned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him what she had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her sense of shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now her oneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be made more perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would speak too! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil would have dropped from between them, and as they had long been one flesh they would be one in spirit.

She waited in the tent door.

After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across the moonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with his head drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close to the tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon—she thought it must be the moon—made his face look strange, like a dying man’s face. In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly.

“Boris!” she said.

“Domini!”

“Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you—something wonderful.”

He came quite up to her.

“Domini,” he said, as if he had not heard her. “Domini, I—I’ve been to the priest to-night. I meant to confess to him.”

“To confess!” she said.

“This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I could not make it. I can only make it to you, Domini—only to you. Do you hear, Domini? Do you hear?”

Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she felt as if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she did not dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he meant to do regardless of her—of anyone.

“What is it, Boris?” she whispered. “Tell me. Perhaps I can understand best because I love best.”

He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman he loves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, with a desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it is touching. At last he took his lips from hers.

“Domini,” he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard, “you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our love—desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God, and I have insulted Him. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by the thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made. I have—I have—”

The hardness went out of his voice. He broke down for a moment and was silent.

“You gave yourself to God,” she said. “How?”

He tried to meet her questioning eyes, but could not.

“I—I gave myself to God as a monk,” he answered after a pause.

As he spoke Domini saw before her in the moonlight De Trevignac. He cast a glance of horror at the tent, bent over her, made the sign of the Cross, and vanished. In his place stood Father Roubier, his eyes shining, his hand upraised, warning her against Androvsky. Then he, too, vanished, and she seemed to see Count Anteoni dressed as an Arab and muttering words of the Koran.

“Domini!”

“Domini, did you hear me? Domini! Domini!”

She felt his hands on her wrists.

“You are the Trappist!” she said quietly, “of whom the priest told me. You are the monk from the Monastery of El-Largani who disappeared after twenty years.”

“Yes,” he said, “I am he.”

“What made you tell me? What made you tell me?”

There was agony now in her voice.

“You asked me to speak, but it was not that. Do you remember last night when I said that God must bless you? You answered, ‘He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your truth.’ It is that which makes me speak. You have had my love, not my truth. Now take my truth. I’ve kept it from you. Now I’ll give it you. It’s black, but I’ll give it you. Domini! Domini! Hate me to-night, but in your hatred believe that I never loved you as I love you now.”

“Give me your truth,” she said.