hey almost always do with a European woman when they've shut her
up--just by tiring her out. But they only made me sullen and stupid. I
don't believe in anything now. You talk about 'God's power.' He's never
helped me. I should think 'things came right' more because Maieddine
felt you couldn't get away from him, then and later, and because he
didn't want to offend the marabout, than because God troubled to
interfere. Besides, things _haven't_ come right. If it weren't for
Maieddine, I might smuggle you away somehow, before the marabout
arrives. But now, Maieddine will be watching us like a lynx--or like an
Arab. It's the same thing where women are concerned."

"Why should the marabout care what I do?" asked Victoria. "He's nothing
to us, is he?--except that I suppose Cassim must have some high position
in his Zaouia."

"A high position! I forgot, you couldn't know--since Maieddine hid
everything from you. An Arab man never trusts a woman to keep a secret,
no matter how much in love he may be. He was evidently afraid you'd tell
some one the great secret on the way. But now you're here, he won't care
what you find out, because he knows perfectly well that you can never
get away."

Victoria started, and turned fully round to stare at her sister with
wide, bright eyes. "I can and I will get away!" she exclaimed. "With
you. Never without you, of course. That's why I came, as I said. To take
you away if you are unhappy. Not all the marabouts in Islam can keep
you, dearest, because they have no right over you--and this is the
twentieth century, not hundreds of years ago, in the dark ages."

"Hundreds of years in the future, it will still be the dark ages in
Islam. And this marabout thinks he _has_ a right over me."

"But if you know he hasn't?"

"I'm beginning to know it--beginning to feel it, anyhow. To feel that
legally and morally I'm free. But law and morals can't break down
walls."

"I believe they can. And if Cassim----"

"My poor child, when Cassim ben Halim died--at a very convenient time
for himself--Sidi El Hadj Mohammed ben Abd-el-Kadr appeared to claim
this maraboutship, left vacant by the third marabout in the line, an
old, old man whose death happened a few weeks before Cassim's. This
present marabout was his next of kin--or so everybody believes. And
that's the way saintships pass on in Islam, just as titles and estates
do in other countries. Now do you begin to understand the mystery?"

"Not quite. I