"Boris, you fled from G.o.d, but do you not think it possible that you could ever return to Him? Have you not taken the first step? Have you not prayed?" His face changed, grew slightly calmer.
"You told me I could pray," he answered, almost like a child. "Otherwise I--I should not have dared to. I should have felt that I was insulting G.o.d."
"If you trusted me in such a thing, can you not trust me now?"
"But"--he said uneasily--"but this is different, a worldly matter, a matter of daily life. I shall have to know."
"Yes."
"Then why should I not know now? At any moment I could ask Batouch."
"Batouch only knows from day to day. I have a map of the desert. I got it before we left Beni-Mora."
Something--perhaps a very slight hesitation in her voice just before she said the last words--startled him. He turned on his horse and looked at her hard.
"Domini," he said, "are we--we are not going back to Beni-Mora?"
"I will tell you to-night," she replied in a low voice. "Let me tell you tonight."
He said no more, but he gazed at her for a long time as if striving pa.s.sionately to read her thoughts. But he could not. Her white face was calm, and she rode looking straight before her, as one that looked towards some distant goal to which all her soul was journeying with her body. There was something mystical in her face, in that straight, far-seeing glance, that surely pierced beyond the blue horizon line and reached a faroff world. What world? He asked himself the question, but no answer came, and he dropped his eyes. A new and horrible sadness came to him, a new sensation of separation from Domini. She had set their bodies apart, and he had yielded. Now, was she not setting something else apart? For, in spite of all, in spite of his treacherous existence with her, he had so deeply and entirely loved her that he had sometimes felt, dared to feel, that in their pa.s.sion in the desert their souls had been fused together. His was black--he knew it--and hers was white. But had not the fire and the depth of their love conquered all differences, made even their souls one as their bodies had been one? And now was she not silently, subtly, withdrawing her soul from his? A sensation of acute despair swept over him, of utter impotence.
"Domini!" he said, "Domini!"
"Yes," she answered.
And this time she withdrew her eyes from the blue distance and looked at him.
"Domini, you must trust me."
He was thinking of the two tents set the one apart from the other.
"Domini, I"ve borne something in silence. I haven"t spoken. I wanted to speak. I tried--but I did not. I bore my punishment--you don"t know, you"ll never know what I felt last--last night--when--I"ve borne that.
But there"s one thing I can"t bear. I"ve lived a lie with you. My love for you overcame me. I fell. I have told you that I fell. Don"t--don"t because of that--don"t take away your heart from me entirely.
Domini--Domini--don"t do that."
She heard a sound of despair in his voice.
"Oh, Boris," she said, "if you knew! There was only one moment when I fancied my heart was leaving you. It pa.s.sed almost before it came, and now--"
"But," he interrupted, "do you know--do you know that since--since I spoke, since I told you, you"ve--you"ve never touched me?"
"Yes, I know it," she replied quietly.
Something told him to be silent then. Something told him to wait till the night came and the camp was pitched once more.
They rested at noon for several hours, as it was impossible to travel in the heat of the day. The camp started an hour before they did. Only Batouch remained behind to show them the way to Ain-la-Hammam, where they would pa.s.s the following night. When Batouch brought the horses he said:
"Does Madame know the meaning of Ain-la-Hammam?"
"No," said Domini. "What is it?"
"Source des tourterelles," replied Batouch. "I was there once with an English traveller."
"Source des tourterelles," repeated Domini. "Is it beautiful, Batouch?
It sounds as if it ought to be beautiful."
She scarcely knew why, but she had a longing that Ain-la-Hammam might be tender, calm, a place to soothe the spirit, a place in which Androvsky might be influenced to listen to what she had to tell him without revolt, without despair. Once he had spoken about the influence of place, about rising superior to it. But she believed in it, and she waited, almost anxiously, for the reply of Batouch. As usual it was enigmatic.
"Madame will see," he answered. "Madame will see. But the Englishman----"
"Yes?"
"The Englishman was ravished. "This," he said to me, "this, Batouch, is a little Paradise!" And there was no moon then. To-night there will be a moon."
"Paradise!" exclaimed Androvsky.
He sprang upon his horse and pulled up the reins. Domini said no more.
They had started late. It was night when they reached Ain-la-Hammam. As they drew near Domini looked before her eagerly through the pale gloom that hung over the sand. She saw no village, only a very small grove of palms and near it the outline of a bordj. The place was set in a cup of the Sahara. All around it rose low hummocks of sand. On two or three of them were isolated clumps of palms. Here the eyes roamed over no vast distances. There was little suggestion of s.p.a.ce. She drew up her horse on one of the hummocks and gazed down. She heard doves murmuring in their soft voices among the trees. The tents were pitched near the bordj.
"What does Madame think?" asked Batouch. "Does Madame agree with the Englishman?"
"It is a strange little place," she answered.
She listened to the voices of the doves. A dog barked by the bordj.
"It is almost like a hiding-place," she added.
Androvsky said nothing, but he, too, was gazing intently at the trees below them, he, too, was listening to the voices of the doves. After a moment he looked at her.
"Domini," he whispered. "Here--won"t you--won"t you let me touch your hand again here?"
"Come, Boris," she answered. "It is late."
They rode down into Ain-la-Hammam.
The tents had all been pitched near together on the south of the bordj, and separated by it from the tiny oasis. Opposite to them was a Cafe Maure of the humblest kind, a hovel of baked earth and brushwood, with earthen divans and a coffee niche. Before this was squatting a group of five dirty desert men, the sole inhabitants of Ain-la-Hammam. Just before dinner Domini gave an order to Batouch, and, while they were dining, Androvsky noticed that their people were busy unpegging the two sleeping-tents.
"What are they doing?" he said to Domini, uneasily. In his present condition everything roused in him anxiety. In every unusual action he discerned the beginning of some tragedy which might affect his life.
"I told Batouch to put our tents on the other side of the bordj," she answered.
"Yes. But why?"
"I thought that to-night it would be better if we were a little more alone than we are here, just opposite to that Cafe Maure, and with the servants. And on the other side there are the palms and the water. And the doves were talking there as we rode in. When we have finished dinner we can go and sit there and be quiet."
"Together," he said.
An eager light had come into his eyes. He leaned forward towards her over the little table and stretched out his hand.