E. M. Hull

“ With quick intuition she guessed that the air that was unknown to her must be connected in some way with the sorrow that darkened his life, and the spectre of the past she tried to forget seemed to rise and grin at her triumphantly. She shivered. Would its power last until life ended? Would it stand between them always, rivalling her, thwarting her every effort?
For a long time she dared not look at Peters, who had responded without hesitation to Craven's unceremonious request, but when at length she summoned courage to glance at him it seemed as if he had already forgotten the interruption. ”

“ Unused to opposition, and too selfish to think of anything but his own comfort, the flat refusal was all that was needed to stir Geradine’s smouldering rage to a white heat of fury. An ugly look swept across his lowering face and he started forward with a threatening gesture. And for a few seconds it seemed as if the open quarrel Carew had feared was now inevitable. Tired and on edge, goaded by the other’s insolence and overbearing manner, driven by his own hatred, nothing would have given him greater pleasure than to respond to the provocation offered him. ”

“ It was only here in the desert, in Ahmed Ben Hassan's arms, that she had become alive, that she had learned what life really meant, that she had waked both to happiness and sorrow.
The future stretched out blank and menacing before her, but she turned from it with a great sob of despair. It was on him that her thoughts were fixed. How would life be endurable without him? Dully she wondered why she did not hate him for having done to her what he had done, for having made her what she was. But nothing that he could do could kill the love now that he had inspired. ”

“ Twenty-four hours ago Diana Mayo had not known the meaning of the word fear, and had never in all her life obeyed any one against her inclination, but in twenty-four hours she had lived through years of emotions. For the first time she had pitted her will against a will that was stronger than her own, for the first time she had met an arrogance that was greater and a determination that was firmer than hers. For the first time she had met a man who had failed to bow to her wishes, whom a look had been powerless to transform into a willing slave. ”

“ Music moved her deeply and her highly strung artistic temperament was responding to the beauty of Peters' playing. It was a Russian folk song, plaintive and simple, with a curious minor refrain like the sigh of an aching heart—wild sad harmony with pain in it that gripped the throat. Swayed by the sorrow-haunted music a wave of foreboding came over her, a strange indefinite fear that was formless but that weighed on her like a crushing burden. The happiness of the last few weeks seemed suddenly swamped in the recollection of the misery rampant in the world. ”

“ But chained as she was to a beast like Geradine, the marks of whose brutality he had himself seen on her delicate face, was there not excuse for his love, for the raging temptation that still assailed him to take her from a life of martyrdom and give her the happiness that was her youth’s prerogative? How had she come to be the wife of that drunken, hectoring bully—what unthinkable ordering could have linked her life with his? Impossible that she could ever have loved him. Surely the mere brute strength of the man could not have attracted her, inducing her to a step she had lived to rue. ”

“ Diana wagged an admonishing forefinger. "Fly, Stephens, and fetch the soup! If it is cold there will be a riot." She walked to the edge of the canvas cloth that had been thrown down in front of the tents and stood revelling in the scene around her, her eyes dancing with excitement as they glanced slowly around the camp spread out over the oasis—the clustering palm trees, the desert itself stretching away before her in undulating sweeps, but seemingly level in the evening light, far off to the distant hills lying like a dark smudge against the horizon. ”

“ Royal Carew—and the woman he had loved! With the sweat of agony thick on his forehead he lived again through the horror of that ghastly homecoming. He saw again, clearly as though they stood before him, the pitying, terrified faces of the old servants from whom he learned the sordid story of his betrayal. He passed once more through the hours of anguish when he had knelt in dumb, helpless misery beside the tiny cot in the luxurious nursery and watched the death struggle of the child whom, worse than motherless, he loved so passionately. ”

“ Sitting now in the dainty English bedroom, revelling in the warm beauty of the exquisite landscape that, mellowed in the evening light, lay spread out beneath her eyes, Gillian thought a little sadly of her parting with the Reverend Mother. She had tried to hide the happiness that the strange feeling of freedom gave her, to smother any look or word that might wound the gentle sensibility of the frail robed woman whose eyes were sad at the approaching separation. Her conscience smote her that her own heart held no sadness. She had said very little, nothing of the new life that lay ahead of her. ”

“ Diana subsided on to the thick rug beside the bookcase. For a moment again she was alone, free of the watching eyes that seemed to be burning into her all the time, free of the hated proximity. She dropped her head on her knees with a little whimper of weariness. For a moment she need not check the tide of misery that rushed over her. She was tired in mind and body, exhausted with the emotion that had shaken her until she knew that no matter what happened in the future the Diana of yesterday was dead, and her new self was strange and unfamiliar. ”

“ Then she had married, and marriage had brought her not the joy and wonder of a man’s devotion but the loathing of a man’s possession. All that was brutal, all that was sordid and degrading in such a union she had learned with horror and amazement. Forced to hide the revulsion that filled her, forced into a mode of life that shocked her every sense of decency, she had steeled herself to endure until she had come to look upon herself as a thing of stone, a heartless, lifeless automaton. The hope of a child, that might have been another woman’s salvation, had never touched her. ”

“ She breathed a quick sigh of relief and, slightly altering her position, lay where she could see the solitary figure on the terrace. Erect by the stone ballustrade, his arms folded across his chest, staring intently into the night as if his gaze went far beyond the confines of the great park, he seemed to her a symbol of incarnate loneliness, and her heart contracted at the thought of the suffering and solitude she might not share. If he would only turn to her! If she had only the right to go to him and plead her love, beg the confidence she craved, and stand beside him in his sorrow! ”

“ Ahmed Ben Hassan was no ordinary man to succumb to the fascinations of a woman. She had experienced his obstinacy, and knew the inflexibility of his nature. His determination was a rock against which she had been broken too many times not to know its strength. For a moment she despaired, then courage came to her again, thrusting away the doubts that crowded in upon her and leaving the hope that still lingered in her heart. A faint tremulous smile curved her lips, and she looked up, forcing her thoughts back to the present with an effort. ”

“ And in the dream of what might have been there came to him for the first time the longing for parenthood, the desire for a child born of the woman he adored, a child who joining in his tiny personality the essentials of each would be a tangible proof of their mutual love, a child who would perpetuate the race he sprang from. Craven's breath came fast with a new and tremendous emotion. Then with terrible suddenness came a lightning flash of recollection, a stabbing remembrance that laid his dream in pieces at his feet. ”

“ The man who had shown her a nobler type than she had ever met with, the man who had shown her that all strength was not merciless, that all men did not look on women merely as their natural prey. And as with this desert man, so must it be with many men of her own race. Her brooding eyes darkened with sudden anguish, and she flung on to her face burying her head in the silken cushions, fighting the agony of misery and revolt that swept over her. ”

“ A strong hand that could in its strength be merciless—could it equally in its strength be merciful? The strange thought came unexpectedly as she watched the thin stem of the wineglass turning rapidly and then more slowly until, with a little tinkle, it snapped as the hand clenched suddenly, the knuckles showing white through the tanned skin. Gillian drew a quick breath. Had she been the cause of the mishap—had she stared noticeably, and he been angry at an impertinence? Her cheeks burned and in a misery of shyness she forced her eyes to his face. ”

“ It was Ahmed whom she loved, Ahmed who had waked to such a tardy recognition of the priceless gift that she had given him, Ahmed whom he must wrest from the grim spectre that was hovering near him lest the light that shone in her violet eyes should go out in the blackness of despair. And yet as he looked at her with eyes filled with hopeless misery a demon of suggestion whispered within him, tempting him. He knew his friend as no one else did. What chance of happiness had any woman with a man like Ahmed Ben Hassan, at the mercy of his savage nature and passionate changeable moods? ”

“ Passionately she prayed it, clenching her teeth to smother the sounds of agony that rose in her throat. Weak with emotion, vaguely frightened by his continued abstraction, she was aching for the clasp of his arms, hungering for his kisses, longing for the comfort and reassurance of his voice. Of what was he thinking as he sat motionless, scowling heavily as he stared into space, no longer even smoking. Was it the remembrance of the early sorrow of which he had told her that made his face so stern and sad? A swift spasm of jealousy shook her. ”

“ And that love might have been his, would have been his, for the strength and tenderness of his own passion would have compelled it. She must have turned to him at last and in his love found happiness. And to him her love would have been the crown of life—a life of exquisite joy and beauty, a union of perfect and undivided sympathy. Together they might have made the Towers a paradise on earth; together they might have broken the curse of Craven; together they might have brought happiness into the lives of many. ”

“ Alone Diana turned her face into the pillows with a moan of anguish. Back in the desert a few hours ago, under the shining stars, when the truth had first come to her, she had thought that she was happy, but she knew now that without his love she would never be happy. She had tasted the bitterness of his loveless kisses and she knew that a worse bitterness was to come, and she writhed at the thought of what her life with him would be. ”

“ Then the wood had been a region of mystery and enchantment, peopled with the malevolent djinns and horrible afreets that loomed so large in the Arab’s creed and of whom he discoursed with all the fluency and imagination of his race—tales to which the English boy, already deeply imbued with the spirit of the country, listened half credulous, half unbelieving but always interested, wriggling for sheer joy even when his hair crisped on his head and he peered involuntarily into the depths of the thick undergrowth for the monstrous shapes and fiery eyes that Hosein’s eloquence made so real. ”

“ In the revulsion of feeling that beset him it was not death he shrank from but the thought of eternity—alone. Neither in this world nor in the life everlasting would she be his, and in an agony of longing his soul cried out in anguished loneliness. The yearning for her grew intolerable, a burning physical ache that was torture; but stronger far rose the finer nobler desire for the perfect spiritual companionship that he would never know. ”

“ He lived for the moment, every nerve strained to the utmost, his sombre eyes glowing with a curious look of pleasure, his knees thrust tight against his horse’s ribs, his powerful limbs braced to resist the violent gusts that threatened to tear him from the saddle. The fierce howling of the wind, the savage pitilessness of the scene filled him with a strange excitement, making him exult in his own physical strength, the strength that had enabled him to pursue the wild and strenuous life he had made his own. ”

“ The idea of marriage—even in its highest form, based on mutual consideration and mutual forbearance—was repugnant to her. She thought of it with a shiver of absolute repulsion. To Aubrey it was distasteful, but to her cold, reserved temperament it was a thing of horror and disgust. That women could submit to the degrading intimacy and fettered existence of married life filled her with scornful wonder. To be bound irrevocably to the will and pleasure of a man who would have the right to demand obedience in all that constituted marriage and the strength to enforce those claims revolted her. ”

“ As he turned from the window it was his great height and broad shoulders that struck her first—men of his physique were rare in France—and, in the thought of a moment, the well cut conventional morning coat had seemed absurd, and mentally she had clothed his long limbs in damascened steel. Then she had seen that he was young, how young she could not guess, but younger far than she had imagined. As their eyes met the sombre tragedy in his had hurt her. She divined a sorrow before which her own paled to nothingness and quick pity killed fear. ”

“ Swept clean, the heavens were blazing with stars and the desert lay calm and still in the soft, clear light of a rising moon whose slanting beams shone silver on the sand. A peace and silence that was gripping. To Carew, still seething with the hatred that a little while since had almost mastered him, the marvellous beauty of the night was like the touch of a healing hand and, watching it, for a time he forgot even Geradine. ”