like the
sun opening a flower bud. When he was away I felt hardly alive. When he
came back from Spain to our house or to our tent in the _douar_ I
lived--lived every minute! It was three years ago, when I was thirteen,
that he began to love me as a woman. I shall never forget the day he
told me! I was not _hadjaba_ yet. Do you know what that means? I was
considered to be a child still, and I could go out with my aunt to the
baths, or with one of our servants, unveiled. I was not shut up in the
house as I am now. But in my heart I was a woman, because of Manoeel. And
when he came home after nearly a year in Seville and other parts of
Spain he felt and saw the difference in me. We were in the _douar_, and
life was free and beautiful. For three months Manoeel and I kept our
secret. He said he would do anything to have me for his wife. He would
even become Mohammedan, since religion meant little to him, and love
everything. He had no money of his own, but he had been told that he
could make a fortune with his voice, singing in opera, and he had been
taking lessons without telling my father. A Frenchman--is "impresario"
the right word?--was having his voice trained, and by and by Manoeel
would pay him back out of his earnings. We used to call ourselves
"engaged," as girls and men in Europe are engaged to each other in
secret. But one day, soon after my thirteenth birthday, Aunt Mabrouka,
who must have begun to suspect and spy on us, overheard us talking. She
told my father. At first he wouldn't believe her, but he surprised me
into confessing. I should never have been so stupid, only, from what he
said, I thought he already knew everything. After all, it was so little!
Just words of love, and some dear kisses! He suspected there was more;
and if I hadn't made him understand, he might have killed Manoeel, and
me, too. But even as it was, my father and Aunt Mabrouka hurried me from
the _douar_ in the night, before Manoeel knew that anything had happened.
I was brought here; and never since have I been outside this garden
without a veil. It was months before I went out at all. And Manoeel was
sent away, cursed by my father for ingratitude and treachery, warned
never to come again near Djazerta or the _douar_ as long as he lived,
unless he wished for my death as well as his."

"Have you never seen him since?" Sanda asked, her heart beating fast
with the rush of the story as Ourieda had told it.

"Yes, he has seen me, and I have