sun. To him, too, the
desert had made a revelation--the revelation of her face, and of the
soul behind it looking through it. In the flames of the sun, as they
went into the desert, the flames of their two spirits had been blended.
She knew that certainly and for ever. Then how could it be possible that
Androvsky should not go out with her into the desert?

"Why did you speak to me?" he said.

"We came into the desert together," she answered simply. "We had to know
each other."

"And now--now--we have to say----"

His voice ceased. Far away there was the thin sound of a chime. Domini
had never before heard the church bell in the garden, and now she felt
as if she heard it, not with her ears, but with her spirit. As she heard
she felt Androvsky's hand, which had been hot upon hers, turn cold. He
let her hand go, and again she was stricken by the horrible sound she
had heard the previous night in the desert, when he turned his horse
and rode away with her. And now, as then, he turned away from her in
silence, but she knew that this time he was leaving her, that this
movement was his final good-bye. With his head bowed down he took a few
steps. He was near to a turning of the path. She watched him, knowing
that within less than a moment she would be watching only the trees and
the sand. She gazed at the bent figure, calling up all her faculties,
crying out to herself passionately, desperately, "Remember it--remember
it as it is--there--before you--just as it is--for ever." As it reached
the turning, in the distance of the garden rose the twitter of the flute
of Larbi. Androvsky stopped, stood still with his back turned towards
her. And Larbi, hidden and far off, showered out his little notes of
African love, of love in the desert where the sun is everlasting, and
the passion of man is hot as the sun, where Liberty reigns, lifting her
cymbals that are as spheres of fire, and the footsteps of Freedom are
heard upon the sand, treading towards the south.

Larbi played--played on and on, untiring as the love that blossomed with
the world, but that will not die when the world dies.

Then Androvsky came back quickly till he reached the place where Domini
was standing. He put his hands on her shoulders. Then he sank down on
the sand, letting his hands slip down over her breast and along her
whole body till they clasped themselves round her knees. He pressed his
face into her dress against her knees.

"I love you," he said.