ost cold stole over the sands, among the graves in the cemetery, to
the man and the woman who were keeping vigil upon their knees. The wind
died away almost ere it had risen, and the rigid silence that precedes
the dawn held the desert in its grasp. And God came to Domini in the
silence, Allah through Allah's garden that was shrouded still in the
shadows of night. Once, as she journeyed through the roaring of the
storm, she had listened for the voice of the desert. And as the desert
took her its voice had spoken to her in a sudden and magical silence, in
a falling of the wind. Now, in a more magical silence, the voice of God
spoke to her. And the voice of the desert and of God were as one. As she
knelt she heard God telling her what was in her heart. It was a strange
and passionate revelation. She trembled as she heard. And sometimes
she was inclined to say, "It is not so." And sometimes she was afraid,
afraid of what this--all this that was in her heart--would lead her to
do. For God told her of a strength which she had not known her heart
possessed, which--so it seemed to her--she did not wish it to possess,
of a strength from which something within her shrank, against which
something within her protested. But God would not be denied. He told
her she had this strength. He told her that she must use it. He told
her that she would use it. And she began to understand something of
the mystery of the purposes of God in relation to herself, and to
understand, with it, how closely companioned even those who strive after
effacement of self are by selfishness--how closely companioned she had
been on her African pilgrimage. Everything that had happened in Africa
she had quietly taken to herself, as a gift made to her for herself.

The peace that had descended upon her was balm for her soul, and was
sent merely for that, to stop the pain she suffered from old wounds
that she might be comfortably at rest. The crescendo--the beautiful
crescendo--of calm, of strength, of faith, of hope which she had, as it
were, heard like a noble music within her spirit had been the David sent
to play upon the harp to her Saul, that from her Saul the black demon
of unrest, of despair, might depart. That was what she had believed. She
had believed that she had come to Africa for herself, and now God, in
the silence, was telling her that this was not so, that He had brought
her to Africa to sacrifice herself in the redemption of another. And as
she l