eel shy even of him, as if he must come to her, as if she could
make no advance towards him.

As the blackness upon the sand drew nearer she saw that it was a man
walking heavily. The man had her husband's gait. When she saw that she
turned. She had resolved to meet him at the tent door, to tell him what
she had to tell him at the threshold of their wandering home. Her sense
of shyness died when she was at the tent door. She only felt now her
oneness with her husband, and that to-night their unity was to be made
more perfect. If it could be made quite perfect! If he would speak
too! Then nothing more would be wanting. At last every veil would have
dropped from between them, and as they had long been one flesh they
would be one in spirit.

She waited in the tent door.

After what seemed a long time she saw Androvsky coming across the
moonlit sand. He was walking very slowly, as if wearied out, with his
head drooping. He did not appear to see her till he was quite close to
the tent. Then he stopped and gazed at her. The moon--she thought it
must be the moon--made his face look strange, like a dying man's face.
In this white face the eyes glittered feverishly.

"Boris!" she said.

"Domini!"

"Come here, close to me. I have something to tell you--something
wonderful."

He came quite up to her.

"Domini," he said, as if he had not heard her. "Domini, I--I've been to
the priest to-night. I meant to confess to him."

"To confess!" she said.

"This afternoon I asked him to hear my confession, but tonight I could
not make it. I can only make it to you, Domini--only to you. Do you
hear, Domini? Do you hear?"

Something in his face and in his voice terrified her heart. Now she felt
as if she would stop him from speaking if she dared, but that she did
not dare. His spirit was beyond domination. He would do what he meant to
do regardless of her--of anyone.

"What is it, Boris?" she whispered. "Tell me. Perhaps I can understand
best because I love best."

He put his arms round her and kissed her, as a man kisses the woman he
loves when he knows it may be for the last time, long and hard, with
a desperation of love that feels frustrated by the very lips it is
touching. At last he took his lips from hers.

"Domini," he said, and his voice was steady and clear, almost hard,
"you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our
love--desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God,
and I have in