ain?"

"You are here for long?"

"Some days, I think."

"Whenever you ask me I will come."

"I want you and my husband to meet again. I want that very much." She
spoke with a pressure of eagerness.

"Send for me and I will come at any hour."

"I will send--soon."

When he was gone, Domini sat in the shadow of the tent. From where she
was she could see the Arab cemetery at a little distance, a quantity of
stones half drowned in the sand. An old Arab was wandering there alone,
praying for the dead in a loud, persistent voice. Sometimes he paused
by a grave, bowed himself in prayer, then rose and walked on again. His
voice was never silent. The sound of it was plaintive and monotonous.
Domini listened to it, and thought of homeless men, of those who had
lived and died without ever coming to that open door through which Count
Anteoni had entered. His words and the changed look in his face had made
a deep impression upon her. She realised that in the garden, when they
were together, his eyes, even when they twinkled with the slightly
ironical humour peculiar to him, had always held a shadow. Now that
shadow was lifted out of them. How deep was the shadow in her husband's
eyes. How deep had it been in the eyes of her father. He had died with
that terrible darkness in his eyes and in his soul. If her husband were
to die thus! A terror came upon her. She looked out at the stones in
the sand and imagined herself there--as the old Arab was--praying for
Androvsky buried there, hidden from her on earth for ever. And suddenly
she felt, "I cannot wait, I must act."

Her faith was deep and strong. Nothing could shake it. But might it not
shake the doubt from another's soul, as a great, pure wind shakes leaves
that are dead from a tree that will blossom with the spring? Hitherto
a sense of intense delicacy had prevented her from ever trying to draw
near definitely to her husband's sadness. But her interview with Count
Anteoni, and the sound of this voice praying, praying for the dead men
in the sand, stirred her to an almost fierce resolution. She had given
herself to Androvsky. He had given himself to her. They were one. She
had a right to draw near to his pain, if by so doing there was a chance
that she might bring balm to it. She had a right to look closer into his
eyes if hers, full of faith, could lift the shadow from them.

She leaned back in the darkness of the tent. The old Arab had wandered
further on among the grav