ps it was then. Oh, but you'll see in a minute what nonsense
it is to think about that. I lay still, as I said, for some time,
waiting for the breeze. And when it wouldn't come, I made up my mind
that I must arrive at a decision either to turn my face on the pillow
and go to sleep, or else to get up, go to the tent door, and look out."

"To see this man?"

"Exactly."

"Which did you do?"

"Turned my face on the pillow."

"And went off to sleep?"

"No, grew most intensely awake--as I supposed. The pillow was like fire
against my cheek. It burnt me. With the departure of the breeze the
night had become suddenly most intolerably hot. I turned over on my back
and lay like that. Then I felt as if there was sand on the sheets."

"Sand! Impossible! We aren't in the desert."

"No. But it seemed as if I lay in hot sand. I shifted my position, but
it made no difference. I sat up. The tent door was still closed. I
listened. All those dogs had ceased to bark. There wasn't a sound. Even
the jackals had left off whining. Then I slipped out of bed and threw
that rose-coloured Moorish cloak over me. It rustled just like a thing
rustles in grass, Desmond."

She looked at him with a sort of peculiar significance, and as if she
expected him to gather something definite from the remark.

"A thing in grass," he repeated, wondering. "What sort of thing?"

But Claire avoided the question. She had taken up the fan again, and was
opening and shutting it with a quiet and careful sort of precision, as
she went on in a low and even voice:--

"I disliked this rustling, and held the cloak tightly together with my
hands. I felt as if the man outside the tent had been waiting to hear
that very little noise."

"The rustling?"

"Yes. And that when he heard it he smiled to himself. I didn't intend he
should hear it again though, and as I glided towards the tent door, I
held the cloak very tight and away from my body. And I don't think I can
have made any noise. You know how softly I can move when I choose?"

"Yes."

"When I got to the door, I waited. I couldn't hear the man; but I felt
that he was still there, just on the other side of the flap."

Renfrew leaned forward on the rug. He felt deeply interested, perhaps
only because Claire was the narrator. She held him much as she could
hold an audience in a theatre, by her pose, her hands, her pale, almost
weary face, her heavy sombre eyes, even more than by any words she
chanced to b