have a sequel.
They had faith. And it was difficult not to hate them. But now I am one
of them. I can pray in the desert."

"That was why you left Beni-Mora."

"Yes. I had long been wishing to become a Mohammedan. I came here to be
with the marabout, to enter more fully into certain questions, to see if
I had any lingering doubts."

"And you have none?"

"None."

She looked at his bright eyes and sighed, thinking of her husband.

"You will go back to Beni-Mora?" she asked.

"I don't think so. I am inclined to go farther into the desert, farther
among the people of my own faith. I don't want to be surrounded by
French. Some day perhaps I may return. But at present everything draws
me onward. Tell me"--he dropped the earnest tone in which he had been
speaking, and she heard once more the easy, half-ironical man of the
world--"do you think me a half-crazy eccentric?"

"No!"

"You look at me very gravely, even sadly."

"I was thinking of the men who cannot pray," she said, "even in the
desert."

"They should not come into the Garden of Allah. Don't you remember that
day by the garden wall, when--"

He suddenly checked himself.

"Forgive me," he said simply. "And now tell me about yourself. You never
wrote that you were going to be married."

"I knew you would know it in time--when we met again."

"And you knew we should meet again?"

"Did not you?"

He nodded.

"In the heart of the desert. And you--where are you going? You are not
returning to civilisation?"

"I don't know. I have no plans. I want to do what my husband wishes."

"And he?"

"He loves the desert. He has suggested our buying an oasis and setting
up as date merchants. What do you think of the idea?"

She spoke with a smile, but her eyes were serious, even sad.

"I cannot judge for others," he answered.

When he got up to go he held her hand fast for a moment.

"May I speak what is in my heart?" he asked.

"Yes--do."

"I feel as if what I have told you to-day about myself, about my having
come to the open door of a home I had long been wearily seeking, had
made you sad. Is it so?"

"Yes," she answered frankly.

"Can you tell me why?"

"It has made me realise more sharply than perhaps I did before what must
be the misery of those who are still homeless."

There was in her voice a sound as if she suppressed a sob.

"Hope for them, remembering my many years of wandering."

"Yes, yes."

"Good-bye."

"Will you come ag