't think of the afterwards now, in
these last few hours--in these last----"

Her voice faltered and broke. Then the tears came to her also, and for a
while she could not see the distant lights.

Then she spoke again; she said:

"Boris, let us go now."

He got up without a word. They found the carriage and drove back to
Tunis.

When they reached the hotel they came into the midst of the American
tourists, who were excitedly discussing the dances they had seen, and
calling for cooling drinks to allay the thirst created by the heat of
the close rooms of Oriental houses.

Early next morning a carriage was at the door. When they had got into it
the coachman looked round.

"Where shall I drive to, Monsieur?"

Androvsky looked at him and made no reply.

"To El-Largani," Domini said.

"To the monastery, Madame?"

He whistled to his horses gaily. As they trotted on bells chimed about
their necks, chimed a merry peal to the sunshine that lay over the land.
They passed soldiers marching, and heard the call of bugles, the rattle
of drums. And each sound seemed distant and each moving figure far
away. This world of Africa, fiercely distinct in the clear air under
the cloudless sky, was unreal to them both, was vague as a northern
land wrapped in a mist of autumn. The unreal was about them. Within
themselves was the real. They sat beside each other without speaking.
Words to them now were useless things. What more had they to say?
Everything and nothing. Lifetimes would not have been long enough for
them to speak their thoughts for each other, of each other, to speak
their emotions, all that was in their minds and hearts during that drive
from the city to the monastery that stood upon the hill. Yet did not
their mutual action of that morning say all that need be said? The
silence of the Trappists surely floated out to them over the plains and
the pale waters of the bitter lakes and held them silent.

But the bells on the horses' necks rang always gaily, and the coachman,
who would presently drive Domini back alone to Tunis, whistled and sang
on his high seat.

Presently they came to a great wooden cross standing on a pedestal of
stone by the roadside at the edge of a grove of olive trees. It marked
the beginning of the domain of El-Largani. When Domini saw it she looked
at Androvsky, and his eyes answered her silent question. The coachman
whipped his horses into a canter, as if he were in haste to reach his
destinat