tent became very distant, a mere speck
on his mental horizon.

Suddenly his senses became alert; he felt a presence very close to him.
No footfall on the sand had warned him that he was no longer alone; he
was simply conscious that some one was standing by his side. He jumped
up, anxious to see who it was; he had been lying face downwards on the
sand. No one was there. He listened. Surely he had not been
mistaken? Someone had touched him gently with their hands, some
presence had come quite close to him. He was conscious that a feeling
of peace had come to him, as if virtue had passed into him from those
unseen hands. Then suddenly he knew that Margaret was beside him; they
were standing together as they had stood together on the night when
they plighted their troth. He could hear her saying, "I have come to
you, Mike. You called me and so I came." He could feel the divine
beauty of her passion, the exquisite wonder of her love. Her presence
was as real and helpful to him as though his arms encircled her
material body.

In the midst of his happiness a sense of shame overwhelmed him.
Margaret had come to him because she understood; his sense of shame
evoked her sympathy. He heard her say, "But Mike, I shall understand.
I think something outside myself will help me to understand."

He could see her starlit face. He remembered how he had turned it up
to the heavens and said, "You beautiful Meg, the stars adore you!" His
own words rang in his ears.

She had come to help him to make his love for her still more complete.
She was with him still. He enfolded her in his arms and wept out his
passion on her breast.

CHAPTER V

"Let's begin where we left off yesterday, Mike," Millicent said.

They had finished their lunch and were sitting in the desert watching
the "common or garden" day's idleness of the inhabitants of a Bedouin
camp. The tents were huddled together under the shade of some
feathery-leaved palm-trees, a typical desert homestead.

They had made a short excursion from the site of their own camp, for
the sick man's condition had necessitated their halting for at least
one whole day.

Subtly conscious of the fact that Satan finds some mischief even in the
desert for idle hands to do, Michael had suggested a picnic to a small
oasis which lay to the west of their route. Millicent and her dragoman
and her servants still formed a part of his camp; her splendid supply
of food and medici