r the parapet. A streak
of yellow light from the doorway of the hotel lay upon the white road
below, and in a moment she saw two figures come out from beneath the
verandah and pause there. Hadj was one, the stranger was the other.
The stranger struck a match and tried to light a cigar, but failed. He
struck another match, and then another, but still the cigar would not
draw. Hadj looked at him with mischievous astonishment.

"If Monsieur will permit me--" he began.

But the stranger took the cigar hastily from his mouth and flung it
away.

"I don't want to smoke," Domini heard him say in French.

Then he walked away with Hadj into the darkness.

As they disappeared Domini heard a faint shrieking in the distance. It
was the music of the African hautboy.

The night was marvellously dry and warm. The thickly growing trees in
the garden scarcely moved. It was very still and very dark. Suzanne,
standing at her window, looked like a shadow in her black dress. Her
attitude was romantic. Perhaps the subtle influence of this Sahara
village was beginning to steal even over her obdurate spirit.

The hautboy went on crying. Its notes, though faint, were sharp and
piercing. Once more the church bell chimed among the date palms, and
the two musics, with their violently differing associations, clashing
together smote upon Domini's heart with a sense of trouble, almost of
tragedy. The pulses in her temples throbbed, and she clasped her hands
tightly together. That brief moment, in which she heard the duet of
those two voices, was one of the most interesting, yet also one of the
most painful she had ever known. The church bell was silent now, but the
hautboy did not cease. It was barbarous and provocative, shrill with a
persistent triumph.

Domini went to bed early, but she could not sleep. Just before midnight
she heard someone walking up and down on the verandah. The step was
heavy and shuffling. It came and went, came and went, without pause till
she was in a fever of uneasiness. Only when two chimed from the church
did it cease at last.

She whispered a prayer to Notre Dame de la Garde, The Blessed Virgin,
looking towards Africa. For the first time she felt the loneliness of
her situation and that she was far away.

CHAPTER V

Towards morning Domini slept. It was nearly eight o'clock when she
awoke. The room was full of soft light which told of the sun outside,
and she got up at once, put on a pair of slippers and