ysm of chatter. Irena
looked utterly indifferent and walked feebly. The little procession
disappeared in the moonlight accompanied by the crowd.

"She has stabbed Hadj," Domini said. "Batouch will be glad."

She did not feel as if she were sorry. Indeed, she thought she was glad
too. That the dancer should try to do a thing and fail would have seemed
contradictory. And the streak of blood she had just seen seemed to
relieve her suddenly and to take from her all anger. Her self-control
returned.

"Thank you once more," she said to her companion. "Goodnight."

She remembered the episode of the tower that afternoon, and resolved to
take a definite line this time, and not to run the chance of a second
desertion. She started off down the street, but found him walking beside
her in silence. She stopped.

"I am very much obliged to you for getting me out," she said, looking
straight at him. "And now, good-night."

Almost for the first time he endured her gaze without any uncertainty,
and she saw that though he might be hesitating, uneasy, even
contemptible--as when he hurried down the road in the wake of the negro
procession--he could also be a dogged man.

"I'll go with you, Madame," he said.

"Why?"

"It's night."

"I'm not afraid."

"I'll go with you, Madame."

He said it again harshly and kept his eyes on her, frowning.

"And if I refuse?" she said, wondering whether she was going to refuse
or not.

"I'll follow you, Madame."

She knew by the look on his face that he, too, was thinking of what had
happened in the afternoon. Why should she wish to deprive him of the
reparation he was anxious to make--obviously anxious in an almost
piteously determined way? It was poor pride in her, a mean little
feeling.

"Come with me," she said.

They went on together.

The Arabs, stirred up by the fracas in Tahar's cafe, were seething with
excitement, and several of them, gathered together in a little crowd,
were quarrelling and shouting at the end of the street near the statue
of the Cardinal. Domini's escort saw them and hesitated.

"I think, Madame, it would be better to take a side street," he said.

"Very well. Let us go to the left here. It is bound to bring us to the
hotel as it runs parallel to the house of the sand diviner."

He started.

"The sand-diviner?" he said in his low, strong voice.

"Yes."

She walked on into a tiny alley. He followed her.

"You haven't seen the thin man with the bag