is name?" she asked.

"Aloui."

"Aloui."

She repeated the word slowly. There was a reluctant and yet fascinated
sound in her voice.

"There is melody in the name," he said.

"Yes. Has he--has he ever looked in the sand for you?"

"Once--a long time ago."

"May I--dare I ask if he found truth there?"

"He found nothing for all the years that have passed since then."

"Nothing!"

There was a sound of relief in her voice.

"For those years."

She glanced at him and saw that once again his face had lit up into
ardour.

"He found what is still to come?" she said.

And he repeated:

"He found what is still to come."

Then they walked on in silence till they saw the purple blossoms of
the bougainvillea clinging to the white walls of the _fumoir_. Domini
stopped on the narrow path.

"Is he in there?" she asked almost in a whisper.

"No doubt."

"Larbi was playing the first day I came here."

"Yes."

"I wish he was playing now."

The silence seemed to her unnaturally intense.

"Even his love must have repose."

She went on a step or two till, but still from a distance, she could
look over the low plaster wall beneath the nearest window space into the
little room.

"Yes, there he is," she whispered.

The Diviner was crouching on the floor with his back towards them and
his head bent down. Only his shoulders could be seen, covered with a
white gandoura. They moved perpetually but slightly.

"What is he doing?"

"Speaking with his ancestor."

"His ancestor?"

"The sand. Aloui!"

He called softly. The figure rose, without sound and instantly, and the
face of the Diviner smiled at them through the purple flowers. Again
Domini had the sensation that her body was a glass box in which her
thoughts, feelings and desires were ranged for this man's inspection;
but she walked resolutely through the narrow doorway and sat down on one
of the divans. Count Anteoni followed.

She now saw that in the centre of the room, on the ground, there was
a symmetrical pyramid of sand, and that the Diviner was gently folding
together a bag in his long and flexible fingers.

"You see!" said the Count.

She nodded, without speaking. The little sand heap held her eyes. She
strove to think it absurd and the man who had shaken it out a charlatan
of the desert, but she was really gripped by an odd feeling of awe, as
if she were secretly expectant of some magical demonstration.

The Diviner squatted down once mo