d flame
and the burning torch spoken of in it. Heat, light, a fierce vitality.
Domini had been weary so long, weary of soul, that she was almost
startled to find herself responding quickly to the sacred passion on the
page, to the bright beam that kissed it as twin kisses twin. She knelt
down to say her morning prayer, but all she could whisper was:

"O, God, renew me. O, God, renew me. Give me power to feel, keenly,
fiercely, even though I suffer. Let me wake. Let me feel. Let me be a
living thing once more. O, God, renew me, renew me!"

While she prayed she pressed her face so hard against her hands that
patches of red came upon her cheeks. And afterwards it seemed to her as
if her first real, passionate prayer in Beni-Mora had been almost like a
command to God. Was not such a fierce prayer perhaps a blasphemy?

She rose from that prayer to the first of her new days.

After breakfast she looked over the edge of the verandah and saw Batouch
and Hadj squatting together in the shadow of the trees below. They were
smoking cigarettes and talking eagerly. Their conversation, which was in
Arabic, sounded violent. The accented words were like blows. Domini had
not looked over the parapet for more than a minute before the two guides
saw her and rose smiling to their feet.

"I am waiting to show the village to Madame," said Batouch, coming out
softly into the road, while Hadj remained under the trees, exposing his
teeth in a sarcastic grin, which plainly enough conveyed to Domini his
pity for her sad mistake in not engaging him as her attendant.

Domini nodded, went back into her room and put on a shady hat. Suzanne
handed her a large parasol lined with green, and she descended the
stairs rather slowly. She was not sure whether she wanted a companion in
her first walk about Beni-Mora. There would be more savour of freedom in
solitude. Yet she had hardly the heart to dismiss Batouch, with all his
dignity and determination. She resolved to take him for a little while
and then to get rid of him on some pretext. Perhaps she would make some
purchases in the bazaars and send him to the hotel with them.

"Madame has slept well?" asked the poet as she emerged into the sun.

"Pretty well," she answered, nodding again to Hadj, whose grin became
more mischievous, and opening her parasol. "Where are we going?"

"Wherever Madame wishes. There is the market, the negro village, the
mosque, the casino, the statue of the Cardinal, the b