the fusing of two natures. The desert in this moment was drawing
together two souls into a union which Time and Death would have no power
to destroy. Presently the wind completely died away, only a faint breeze
fluttered the curtains of the palanquin, and the light that penetrated
between them here and there was no longer white, but sparkled with a
tiny dust of gold. Then Androvsky moved to open the curtains, and Domini
spoke for the first time since their marriage.

"Wait," she said in a low voice.

He dropped his hand obediently, and looked at her with inquiry in his
eyes.

"Don't let us look till we are far out," she said, "far away from
Beni-Mora."

He made no answer, but she saw that he understood all that was in her
heart. He leaned a little nearer to her and stretched out his arm as if
to put it round her. But he did not put it round her, and she knew why.
He was husbanding his great joy as she had husbanded the dark hours of
the previous night that to her were golden. And that unfinished action,
that impulse unfulfilled, showed her more clearly the depths of his
passion for her even than had the desperate clasp of his hands about
her knees in the garden. That which he did not do now was the greatest
assertion possible of all that he would do in the life that was before
them, and made her feel how entirely she belonged to him. Something
within her trembled like a poor child before whom is suddenly set the
prospect of a day of perfect happiness. She thought of the ending of
this day, of the coming of the evening. Always the darkness had parted
them; at the ending of this day it would unite them. In Androvsky's
eyes she read her thought of the darkness reflected, reflected and yet
changed, transmuted by sex. It was as if at that moment she read the
same story written in two ways--by a woman and by a man, as if she saw
Eden, not only as Eve saw it, but as Adam.

A long time passed, but they did not feel it to be long. When their
camel halted they unclasped their hands slowly like sleepers reluctantly
awaking.

They heard Batouch's voice outside the palanquin.

"Madame!" he called. "Madame!"

"What is it?" asked Domini, stifling a sigh.

"Madame should draw the curtains. We are halfway to Arba. It is time for
_dejeuner_. I will make the camel of Madame lie down."

A loud "A-a-ah!" rose up, followed by a fierce groaning from the camel,
and a lethargic, yet violent, movement that threw them forward and
bac