last desire of all created things. Domini knew that she did not
realise the joy of this moment of her life now when she felt no longer
that she was a woman, but only that she was a living praise winging
upward to God.

A warm, strong hand clasped hers. She opened her eyes. In the dim
twilight of the palanquin she saw the darkness of Androvsky's tall
figure sitting in the crouched attitude rendered necessary by the
peculiar seat, and swaying slightly to the movement of the camel. The
light was so obscure that she could not see his eyes or clearly discern
his features, but she felt that he was gazing at her shadowy figure,
that his mind was passionately at work. Had he, too, been silently
praising God for his happiness, and was he now wishing the body to join
in the soul's delight?

She left her hand in his passively. The sense of her womanhood, lost for
a moment in the ecstasy of worship, had returned to her, but with a
new and tremendous meaning which seemed to change her nature. Androvsky
forcibly pressed her hand with his, let it go, then pressed it again,
repeating the action with a regularity that seemed suggested by some
guidance. She imagined him pressing her hand each time his heart pulsed.
She did not want to return the pressure. As she felt his hand thus
closing and unclosing over hers, she was conscious that she, who in
their intercourse had played a dominant part, who had even deliberately
brought about that intercourse by her action on the tower, now longed to
be passive and, forgetting her own power and the strength and force of
her nature, to lose herself in the greater strength and force of this
man to whom she had given herself. Never before had she wished to be
anything but strong. Nor did she desire weakness now, but only that his
nature should rise above hers with eagle's wings, that when she looked
up she should see him, never when she looked down. She thought that to
see him below her would kill her, and she opened her lips to say so. But
something in the windy darkness kept her silent. The heavy curtains of
the palanquin shook perpetually, and the tall wooden rods on which they
were slung creaked, making a small, incessant noise like a complaining,
which joined itself with the more distant but louder noise made by the
leaves of the thousands of palm trees dashed furiously together. From
behind came the groaning of one of the camels, borne on the gusts of
the wind, and faint sounds of the calling