Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled himself on his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, without a rose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor. Domini stood without.
When he saw her he smiled quietly, with no surprise.
"Madame has returned?"
Domini smiled at him, but her lips were trembling, and she said nothing.
Smain observed her with a dawning of curiosity.
"Madame is changed," he said at length. "Madame looks tired. The sun is hot in the desert now. It is better here in the garden."
With an effort she controlled herself.
"Yes, Smain," she answered, "it is better here. But I can not stay here long."
"You are going away?"
"Yes, I am going away."
She saw more quiet questions fluttering on his lips, and added:
"And now I want to walk in the garden alone."
He waved his hand towards the trees.
"It is all for Madame. Monsieur the Count has always said so. But Monsieur?"
"He is in Beni-Mora. He is coming presently to fetch me."
Then she turned away and walked slowly across the great sweep of sand towards the trees and was taken by their darkness. She heard again the liquid bubbling of the hidden waterfall, and was again companioned by the mystery of this desert Paradise, but it no longer whispered to her of peace for her. It murmured only its own personal peace and accentuated her own personal agony and struggle. All that it had been it still was, but all that she had been in it was changed. And she felt the full terror of Nature"s equanimity environing the fierce and tortured lives of men.
As she walked towards the deepest recesses of the garden along the winding tracks between the rills she had no sensation of approaching the hidden home of the Geni of the garden. Yet she remembered acutely all her first feelings there. Not one was forgotten. They returned to her like spectres stealing across the sand. They lurked like spectres among the dense ma.s.ses of the trees. She strove not to see their pale shapes, not to hear their terrible voices. She strove to draw calm once more from this infinite calm of silently-growing things aspiring towards the sun. But with each step she took the torment in her heart increased. At last she came to the deeper darkness and the blanched sand, and saw pine needles strewed about her feet. Then she stood still, instinctively listening for a sound that would complete the magic of the garden and her own despair. She waited for it. She even felt, strangely, that she wanted, that she needed it--the sound of the flute of Larbi playing his amorous tune. But his flute to-day was silent. Had he fallen out of an old love and not yet found a new? or had he, perhaps, gone away? or was he dead? For a long time she stood there, thinking about Larbi. He and his flute and his love were mingled with her life in the desert. And she felt that she could not leave the desert without bidding them farewell.
But the silence lasted and she went on and came to the _fumoir_. She went into it at once and sat down. She was going to wait for Androvsky here.
Her mind was straying curiously to-day. Suddenly she found herself thinking of the fanatical religious performance she had seen with Hadj on the night when she had ridden out to watch the moon rise. She saw in imagination the bowing bodies, the foaming mouths, the gla.s.sy eyes of the young priests of the Sahara. She saw the spikes behind their eyeb.a.l.l.s, the struggling scorpions descending into their throats, the flaming coals under their arm-pits, the nails driven into their heads.
She heard them growling as they saw the gla.s.s, like hungry beasts at the sight of meat. And all this was to them religion. This madness was their conception of worship. A voice seemed to whisper to her: "And your madness?"
It was like the voice that whispered to Androvsky in the cemetery of El-Largani, "Come out with me into that world, that beautiful world which G.o.d made for men. Why do you reject it?"
For a moment she saw all religions, all the practices, the renunciations of the religions of the world, as varying forms of madness. She compared the self-denial of the monk with the fetish worship of the savage. And a wild thrill of something that was almost like joy rushed through her, the joy that sometimes comes to the unbelievers when they are about to commit some act which they feel would be contrary to G.o.d"s will if there were a G.o.d. It was a thrill of almost insolent human emanc.i.p.ation. The soul cried out: "I have no master. When I thought I had a master I was mad. Now I am sane."
But it pa.s.sed almost as it came, like a false thing slinking from the sunlight, and Domini bowed her head in the obscurity of Count Anteoni"s thinking-place and returned to her true self. That moment had been like the moment upon the tower when she saw below her the Jewess dancing upon the roof for the soldiers, a black speck settling for an instant upon whiteness, then carried away by a purifying wind. She knew that she would always be subject to such moments so long as she was a human being, that there would always be in her blood something that was self-willed. Otherwise, would she not be already in Paradise? She sat and prayed for strength in the battle of life, that could never be anything else but a battle.
At last something within her told her to look up, to look out through the window-s.p.a.ce into the garden. She had not heard a step, but she knew that Androvsky was approaching, and, as she looked up, she prepared herself for a sight that would be terrible. She remembered his face when he came to bid her good-bye in the garden, and she feared to see his face now. But she schooled herself to be strong, for herself and for him.
He was near her on the path coming towards her. As she saw him she uttered a little cry and stood up. An immense surprise came to her, followed in a moment by an immense joy--the greatest joy, she thought, that she had ever experienced. For she looked on a face in which she saw for the first time a pale dawning of peace. There was sadness in it, there was awe, but there was a light of calm, such as sometimes settles upon the faces of men who have died quietly without agony or fear. And she felt fully, as she saw it, the rapture of having refused cowardice and grasped the hand of bravery. Directly afterwards there came to her a sensation of wonder that at this moment of their lives she and Androvsky should be capable of a feeling of joy, of peace. When the wonder pa.s.sed it was as if she had seen G.o.d and knew for ever the meaning of His divine compensations.
Androvsky came to the doorway of the _fumoir_ without looking up, stood still there--just where Count Anteoni had stood during his first interview with Domini--and said:
"Domini, I have been to the priest. I have made my confession."
"Yes," she said. "Yes, Boris!"
He came into the _fumoir_ and sat down near her, but not close to her, on one of the divans. Now the sad look in his face had deepened and the peace seemed to be fading. She had thought of the dawn--that pale light which is growing into day. Now she thought of the twilight which is fading into night. And the terrible knowledge struck her, "I am the troubler of his peace. Without me only could he ever regain fully the peace which he has lost."
"Domini," he said, looking up at her, "you know the rest. You meant it to be as it will be when we left Amara."
"Was there any other way? Was there any other possible life for us--for you--for me?"
"For you!" he said, and there was a sound almost of despair in his voice. "But what is to be your life? I have never protected you--you have protected me. I have never been strong for you--you have been strong for me. But to leave you--all alone, Domini, must I do that? Must I think of you out in the world alone?"
For a moment she was tempted to break her silence, to tell him the truth, that she would perhaps not be alone, that another life, sprung from his and hers, was coming to be with her, was coming to share the great loneliness that lay before her. But she resisted the temptation and only said:
"Do not think of me, Boris."
"You tell me not to think of you!" he said with an almost fierce wonder.
"Do you--do you wish me not to think of you?"
"What I wish--that is so little, but--no, Boris, I can"t say--I don"t think I could ever truly say that I wish you to think no more of me.
After all, one has a heart, and I think if it"s worth anything it must be often a rebellious heart. I know mine is rebellious. But if you don"t think too much of me--when you are there--"
She paused, and they looked at each other for a moment in silence. Then she continued:
"Surely it will be easier for you, happier for you."
Androvsky clenched his right hand on the divan and turned round till he was facing her full. His eyes blazed.
"Domini," he said, "you are truthful. I"ll be truthful to you. Till the end of my life I"ll think of you--every day, every hour. If it were mortal sin to think of you I would commit it--yes, Domini, deliberately, I would commit it. But--G.o.d doesn"t ask so much of us; no, G.o.d doesn"t.
I"ve made my confession. I know what I must do. I"ll do it. You are right--you are always right--you are guided, I know that. But I will think of you. And I"ll tell you something--don"t shirk from it, because it"s truth, the truth of my soul, and you love truth. Domini--"
Suddenly he got up from the divan and stood before her, looking down at her steadily.
"Domini, I can"t regret that I have seen you, that we have been together, that we have loved each other, that we do love each other for ever. I can"t regret it; I can"t even try or wish to. I can"t regret that I have learned from you the meaning of life. I know that G.o.d has punished me for what I have done. In my love for you--till I told you the truth, that other truth--I never had a moment of peace--of exultation, yes, of pa.s.sionate exultation; but never, never a moment of peace. For always, even in the most beautiful moments, there has been agony for me. For always I have known that I was sinning against G.o.d and you, against myself, my eternal vows. And yet now I tell you, Domini, as I have told G.o.d since I have been able to pray again, that I am glad, thankful, that I have loved you, been loved by you. Is it wicked? I don"t know. I can scarcely even care, because it"s true. And how can I deny the truth, strive against truth? I am as I am, and I am that. G.o.d has made me that. G.o.d will forgive me for being as I am. I"m not afraid.
I believe--I dare to believe--that He wishes me to think of you always till the end of my life. I dare to believe that He would almost hate me if I could ever cease from loving you. That"s my other confession--my confession to you. I was born, perhaps, to be a monk. But I was born, too, that I might love you and know your love, your beauty, your tenderness, your divinity. If I had not known you, if I had died a monk, a good monk who had never denied his vows, I should have died--I feel it, Domini--in a great, a terrible ignorance. I should have known the goodness of G.o.d, but I should never have known part, a beautiful part, of His goodness. For I should never have known the goodness that He has put into you. He has taught me through you. He has tortured me through you; yes, but through you, too, He has made me understand Him. When I was in the monastery, when I was at peace, when I lost myself in prayer, when I was absolutely pure, absolutely--so I thought--the child of G.o.d, I never really knew G.o.d. Now, Domini, now I know Him. In the worst moments of the new agony that I must meet at least I shall always have that help. I shall always feel that I know what G.o.d is. I shall always, when I think of you, when I remember you, be able to say, "G.o.d is love.""
He was silent, but his face still spoke to her, his eyes read her eyes.
And in that moment at last they understood each other fully and for ever. "It was written"--that was Domini"s thought--"it was written by G.o.d." Far away the church bell chimed.
"Boris," Domini said quietly, "we must go to-day. We must leave Beni-Mora. You know that?"
"Yes," he said, "I know."
He looked out into the garden. The almost fierce resolution, that had something in it of triumph, faded from him.
"Yes," he said, "this is the end, the real end, for--there, it will all be different--it will be terrible."
"Let us sit here for a little while together," Domini said, "and be quiet. Is it like the garden of El-Largani, Boris?"
"No. But when I first came here, when I saw the white walls, the great door, when I saw the poor Arabs gathered there to receive alms, it made me feel almost as if I were at El-Largani. That was why----" he paused.