quiver, and a cry for protection rose within her, the cry of the woman
who cannot face life alone, who must find a protector, and who must
cling to a strong arm, who needs man as the world needs God.

Then again it seemed to her that she saw Androvsky galloping upon a
horse as if pursued.

Moved by a desire to do something to combat this strange despair,
born of the moonrise and the night, she sat erect in her saddle, and
resolutely looked at the desert, striving to get away from herself in
a hard contemplation of the details that surrounded her, the outward
things that were coming each moment into clearer view. She gazed
steadily towards the palms that sharply cut the moonlight. As she did so
something black moved away from them, as if it had been part of them
and now detached itself with the intention of approaching her along the
track. At first it was merely a moving blot, formless and small, but
as it drew nearer she saw that it was a horseman riding slowly, perhaps
stealthily, across the sand. She glanced behind her, and saw Batouch not
far off, and the fires of the nomads. Then she turned again to watch the
horseman. He came steadily forward.

"Madame!"

It was the voice of Batouch.

"Stay where you are!" she called out to him.

She heard the soft sound of the horse's feet and could see the attitude
of its rider. He was leaning forward as if searching the night. She rode
to meet him, and they came to each other in the path of the light she
had thought tragic.

"You followed me?"

"I cannot see you go out alone into the desert at night," Androvsky
replied.

"But you have no right to follow me."

"I cannot let harm come to you, Madame."

She was silent. A moment before she had been longing for a protector.
One had come to her, the man whom she had been setting with those
legendary figures who have saddened and appalled the imagination of men.
She looked at the dark figure of Androvsky leaning forward on the
horse whose feet were set on the path of the moon, and she did not know
whether she felt confidence in him or fear of him. All that the priest
had said rose up in her mind, all that Count Anteoni had hinted and that
had been visible in the face of the sand-diviner. This man had followed
her into the night as a guardian. Did she need someone, something, to
guard her from him? A faint horror was still upon her. Perhaps he knew
it and resented it, for he drew himself upright on his horse and spoke
ag