said.

"Isn't four better than three?"

"You don't want to tell me."

"I am a little malicious. You have divined it, so why should I not
acknowledge it? I asked Father Roubier because I wished to see the man
of prayer with the man who fled from prayer."

"Mussulman prayer," she said quickly.

"Prayer," he said.

His voice was peculiarly harsh at that moment. It grated like an
instrument on a rough surface. Domini knew that secretly he was standing
up for the Arab faith, that her last words had seemed to strike against
the religion of the people whom he loved with an odd, concealed passion
whose fire she began to feel at moments as she grew to know him better.

It was plain from their manner to each other that their former slight
acquaintance had moved towards something like a pleasant friendship.

Domini looked as if she were no longer a wonder-stricken sight-seer in
this marvellous garden of the sun, but as if she had become familiar
with it. Yet her wonder was not gone. It was only different. There was
less sheer amazement, more affection in it. As she had said, she had not
become accustomed to the magic of Africa. Its strangeness, its contrasts
still startled and moved her. But she began to feel as if she belonged
to Beni-Mora, as if Beni-Mora would perhaps miss her a little if she
went away.

Ten days had passed since the ride to Sidi-Zerzour--days rather like a
dream to Domini.

What she had sought in coming to Beni-Mora she was surely finding. Her
act was bringing forth its fruit. She had put a gulf, in which rolled
the sea, between the land of the old life and the land in which at least
the new life was to begin. The completeness of the severance had acted
upon her like a blow that does not stun, but wakens. The days went like
a dream, but in the dream there was the stir of birth. Her lassitude was
permanently gone. There had been no returning after the first hours
of excitement. The frost that had numbed her senses had utterly melted
away. Who could be frost-bound in this land of fire? She had longed
for peace and she was surely finding it, but it was a peace without
stagnation. Hope dwelt in it, and expectancy, vague but persistent.
As to forgetfulness, sometimes she woke from the dream and was almost
dazed, almost ashamed to think how much she was forgetting, and how
quickly. Her European life and friends--some of them intimate and
close--were like a far-off cloud on the horizon, flying still fart