was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive."

"Agony?"

"Of mind, of heart. You--I know, Boris, you can't feel with me on
certain subjects--yet--"

"Yet!" he said.

"Boris"--she got up and came to the tent door, but not out upon the
sand--"I dare to hope that some day perhaps----"

She was silent, looking towards him with her brave, steady eyes.

"Agony of heart?" Androvsky said, recurring to her words. "You
think--what--you pity that man then?"

"And don't you?"

"I--what has he to do with--us? Why should we--?"

"I know. But one does sometimes pity men one never has seen, never will
see, if one hears something frightful about them. Perhaps--don't smile,
Boris--perhaps it was seeing that liqueur, which he had actually made in
the monastery when he was at peace with God, perhaps it was seeing that,
that has made me realise--such trifles stir the imagination, set it
working--at any rate--"

She broke off. After a minute, during which he said nothing, she
continued:

"I believe the priest felt something of the same sort. He could not
drink the liqueur that man had made, although he intended to."

"But--that might have been for a different reason," Androvsky said in
a harsh voice; "priests have strange ideas. They often judge things
cruelly, very cruelly."

"Perhaps they do. Yes; I can imagine that Father Roubier of Beni-Mora
might, though he is a good man and leads a saintly life."

"Those are sometimes the most cruel. They do not understand."

"Perhaps not. It may be so. But this priest--he's not like that."

She thought of his genial, bearded face, his expression when he said,
"We are ruffians of the sun," including himself with the desert men, his
boisterous laugh.

"His fault might be the other way."

"Which way?"

"Too great a tolerance."

"Can a man be too tolerant towards his fellow-man?" said Androvsky.

There was a strange sound of emotion in his deep voice which moved her.
It seemed to her--why, she did not know--to steal out of the depth of
something their mutual love had created.

"The greatest of all tolerance is God's," she said. "I'm sure--quite
sure--of that."

Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his arms
with passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force and
fire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense.

"God will bless you," he said. "God will bless you. Whatever life brings
you at the e