ture.

"But Nature had been cruel. She had bestowed those matchless charms only
to withdraw them too soon. I saw her and from that moment loved her:
loved her for ever. There was no doubt or wavering in my mind. I
approached her. She met me fearlessly, naturally, without thought of
guile. To my delight she spoke perfect French, was evidently refined and
educated. Her father was the proprietor of this little paradise. This
meant that he was probably at ease in the world without being exactly
rich. I quickly got to know him. Wooing in this part of the world is not
a matter of months or years. Within a week of our first meeting, I was
engaged to Arouya. Her father was only too willing to give her to one
who was young, good-looking, above all had wealth at his command.
Almost immediately, without counting the cost or reflecting upon the
mistake of a union with one of another race and religion, we were
married. But all the reflection in the world would have made no
difference. I was borne on by a mighty torrent against which there was
no struggling.

"For six months I lived a charmed, enraptured, secluded life with
Arouya, my wife. We were intensely happy in each other's love: bliss
that is rarely given to mortals. It was not a mere life of the senses;
her mind was wonderfully pure, bright and expansive. From the very first
I laboured to convert her to Christianity, and with singular clearness
she grasped and embraced all its profound yet simple truths: became
deeply, devotedly religious. This only seemed to strengthen her
affection for me.

"But it was not to last. Almost from the day of our marriage I felt the
shadow of the sword. Our happiness was to be as fleeting as it was
perfect. Arouya was already stricken with mortal illness. Consumption
had set its seal upon her. Before we had been married three months she
began to droop; at the end of six months she died. Died in my arms,
blessing the hour in which we had first met. I laid her in her far-off
grave, within sound of the sea, which chants her eternal requiem.

"I will draw a veil over my grief. For the third time in my young life I
was heavily stricken. But I have learned to see the hand of mercy in the
blow, and in time I lived it down. It was an episode in my life so
romantic, so sacred, that I never spoke of it even to the good Abbe. You
are the first to whom I have confided it. The secret is locked in my own
breast--and in yours.

"I left Algeria and sought