he looked at the
tent in which Androvsky slept with horror? Was it because Androvsky had
denounced the religion that he reverenced and loved? Could it have been
that? But then--did Androvsky actively hate religion? Perhaps he hated
it, and concealed his hatred from her because he knew it would cause
her pain. Yet she had sometimes felt as if he were seeking, perhaps
with fear, perhaps with ignorance, perhaps with uncertainty, but still
seeking to draw near to God. That was why she had been able to hope
for him, why she had not been more troubled by his loss of the faith in
which he had been brought up, and to which she belonged heart and soul.
Could she have been wrong in her feeling--deceived? There were men in
the world, she knew, who denied the existence of a God, and bitterly
ridiculed all faith. She remembered the blasphemies of her father. Had
she married a man who, like him, was lost, who, as he had, furiously
denied God?

A cold thrill of fear came into her heart. Suddenly she felt as if,
perhaps, even in her love, Androvsky had been a stranger to her.

She stood upon the sand. It chanced that she looked towards the camp of
the Ouled Nails, whose fires blazed upon the dunes. While she looked she
was presently aware of a light that detached itself from the blaze of
the fires, and moved from them, coming towards the place where she was
standing, slowly. The young moon only gave a faint ray to the night.
This light travelled onward through the dimness like an earth-bound
star. She watched it with intentness, as people watch any moving thing
when their minds are eagerly at work, staring, yet scarcely conscious
that they see.

The little light moved steadily on over the sands, now descending the
side of a dune, now mounting to a crest, and always coming towards the
place where Domini was standing, And presently this determined movement
towards her caught hold of her mind, drew it away from other thoughts,
fixed it on the light. She became interested in it, intent upon it.

Who was bearing it? No doubt some desert man, some Arab. She imagined
him tall, brown, lithe, half-naked, holding the lamp in his muscular
fingers, treading on bare feet silently, over the deep sand. Why had he
left the camp? What was his purpose?

The light drew near. It was now moving over the flats and seemed, she
thought, to travel more quickly. And always it came straight towards
where she was standing. A conviction dawned in her that it