ficent looking forward, its holy desires of joy that
would crown her woman's life, of love that would teach her all
the depth, and the height, and the force and the submission of her
womanhood. And then, from that past, it strove on into the present. The
shock was as the shock of battle. There were noises in her ears, voices
clamouring in her heart. All her pulses throbbed like hammers, and then
suddenly she felt as weak as a little sick child, and as if she must lie
down there on the dust of the white road in the sunshine, lie down and
die at the edge of the desert that had treated her cruelly, that had
slain the hopes it had given to her and brought into her heart this
terrible despair.

For now she knew a moment of utter despair, in which all things seemed
to dissolve into atoms and sink down out of her sight. She stood
quivering in blackness. She stood absolutely alone, more absolutely
alone than any woman had ever been, than any human being had ever been.
She seemed presently, as the blackness faded into something pale, like a
ghastly twilight, to see herself--her wraith, as it were--standing in a
vast landscape, vast as the desert, companionless, lost, forgotten, out
of mind, watching for something that would never come, listening for
some voice that was hushed in eternal silence.

That was to be her life, she thought--could she face it? Could she
endure it? And everything within her said to her that she could not.

And then, just then, when she felt that she must sink down and give
up the battle of life, she seemed to see by her side a shape, a little
shape like a child. And it lifted up a hand to her hand.

And she knew that the vast landscape was God's garden, the Garden of
Allah, and that no day, no night could ever pass without God walking in
it.

Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled himself
on his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, without a
rose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor. Domini stood without.
When he saw her he smiled quietly, with no surprise.

"Madame has returned?"

Domini smiled at him, but her lips were trembling, and she said nothing.

Smain observed her with a dawning of curiosity.

"Madame is changed," he said at length. "Madame looks tired. The sun is
hot in the desert now. It is better here in the garden."

With an effort she controlled herself.

"Yes, Smain," she answered, "it is better here. But I can not stay here
long."