to be
in the hands of this woman who had received his confession with
this wonderful calm, who was leading him he knew not whither in this
wonderful silence.

When the camp was pitched, however, he noticed something that caught
him sharply away from the dreamlike, unreal feeling, and set him face to
face with fact that was cold as steel. Always till now the dressing-tent
had been pitched beside their sleeping-tent, with the flap of the
entrance removed so that the two tents communicated. To-night it stood
apart, near the sleeping-tent, and in it was placed one of the small
camp beds. Androvsky was alone when he saw this. On reaching the
halting-place he had walked a little way into the desert. When he
returned he found this change. It told him something of what was passing
in Domini's mind, and it marked the transformation of their mutual life.
As he gazed at the two tents he felt stricken, yet he felt a curious
sense of something that was like--was it not like--relief? It was as if
his body had received a frightful blow and on his soul a saint's hand
had been gently laid, as if something fell about him in ruins, and at
the same time a building which he loved, and which for a moment he had
thought tottering, stood firm before him founded upon rock. He was a man
capable of a passionate belief, despite his sin, and he had always had a
passionate belief in Domini's religion. That morning, when she came out
to him in the sand, a momentary doubt had assailed him. He had known the
thought, "Does she love me still--does she love me more than she
loves God, more than she loves his dictates manifested in the Catholic
religion?" When she said that word "together" that had been his thought.
Now, as he looked at the two tents, a white light seemed to fall upon
Domini's character, and in this white light stood the ruin and the house
that was founded upon a rock. He was torn by conflicting sensations
of despair and triumph. She was what he had believed. That made the
triumph. But since she was that where was his future with her? The monk
and the man who had fled from the monastery stood up within him to do
battle. The monk knew triumph, but the man was in torment.

Presently, as Androvsky looked at the two tents, the monk in him seemed
to die a new death, the man who had left the monastery to know a new
resurrection. He was seized by a furious desire to go backward in time,
to go backward but a few hours, to the moment when Domini d