more. But it is so desperately important to
be certain. I must wait a little while yet."

Always, through the countless inquiries of Lella Mabrouka and the girl
about France and England (Ireland meant nothing to them) and Sanda's
bringing up, and the life of women in Europe, the visitor was conscious
of the real questions in their souls. But on the third day the feverish
anxiety had burnt itself out behind Ourieda's topaz-brown eyes. They
were eager still, but clear, and her wistful smile was no longer
strained. Whatever the burden was that she hid, she had decided to beg
Sanda's help in carrying or getting rid of it. And instinctively
realizing this, Sanda ceased to feel that the Arab girl was of an
entirely different world from hers, remote as a creature of another
planet. The Agha's daughter was transformed in the eyes of her guest.
From a mere picturesque figure in a vivid fairy tale, she became
pathetically, poignantly human. Sanda began to hear the call of another
soul yearning to have her soul as its friend, and all that was warm and
impulsive in her responded. A thrill of expectation stirred in her veins
when, on the evening of the third day, after the wind had died a sudden,
swift death, Ourieda whispered the real reason for going up to the roof.

Sanda had been looking forward to mounting those narrow stairs (with the
steep steps which Lella Mabrouka hated), because Ourieda had several
times spoken of the view far away to the dunes, and the wonderful
colours of sunrise and sunset, when the sky flowered like a hanging
garden. Perhaps the Arab girl had been cleverly "working up" to this
moment, so that the suggestion, made instantly after the death of the
simoon, might seem natural to her aunt. In any case it was as Ourieda
had hoped. Lella Mabrouka did not follow the girls.

When they came out on the flat white expanse of roof, Sanda gave a cry
of surprised admiration. She had known it would be beautiful up there,
to see so far over the desert, but the real picture was more wonderful
than her imagination could have painted. The sun had just dropped behind
the waving line of dunes and dragged the fierce wind with him like a
tiger in leash. All the world was magically still after the constant
purring and roaring of the new-conquered beast. The voice of the Muezzin
chanting the sunset call to prayer--the prayer of _Moghreb_--seemed only
to emphasize the vast silence. Up from the shimmering gold of the
western s