Edith Maude Hull

“ It was three months since the night that Saint Hubert had almost given up hope of being able to save the Sheik's life—a night that had been followed by days of suspense that had reduced Diana to a weary-eyed shadow of her former vigorous self, and had left marks on Raoul that would never be effaced. But thanks to his great strength and splendid constitution the Sheik had rallied and after the first few weeks convalescence had been rapid. When the terrible fear that he might die was past it had been a wonderful happiness to wait on him. ”

“ A child that would be his and hers, a child—a boy with the same passionate dark eyes, the same crisp brown hair, the same graceful body, who would grow up as tall and strong, as brave and fearless as his father. Surely he must love her then. Surely the memory of his own mother's tragic history would make him merciful to the mother of his son. But she had no hope of that mercy. She lay shaking with passionate yearning and the storm of bitter tears that swept over her, hungry for the clasp of his arms, faint with longing. The pent-up misery of weeks that she had crushed down surged over. ”

“ You are so young, your life is only just beginning. You are strong enough to put the memory of these last months out of your mind—to forget the past and live only for the future. No one need ever know. There can be no fear for your—reputation. Things are forgotten in the silence of the desert. Mustafa Ali is many hundreds of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men need not be considered, they speak or are silent as I wish. There is only Raoul, and there is no question of him. ”

“ The servant had been merged into the man, and a man who had the courage to do what he had attempted when he had faced her at what had seemed the last moment with his revolver clenched in a hand that had not shaken, a man at whose side and by whose hand she would have been proud to die. They were men, these desert dwellers, master and servants alike; men who endured, men who did things, inured to hardships, imbued with magnificent courage, splendid healthy animals. There was nothing effete or decadent about the men with whom Ahmed Ben Hassan surrounded himself.
Diana had always liked Gaston ”

“ Some nights he lingered talking, and others the Sheik dismissed him in a few minutes with only a curt word or two, and then there would be silence, and Diana would bury her face in her pillow and writhe in her desperate loneliness, sick with longing for the strong arms she had once dreaded and the kisses she had once loathed. He had slept in the outer room since his illness, and tossing feverishly on the soft cushions of the big empty bed in which she lay alone Diana had suffered the greatest humiliation she had yet experienced. He had never loved her, but now he did not even want her. ”

“ Even in the midst of her trouble the thought of him sent a little smile to Diana's lips. She could picture him squatting before the Sheik, scented and immaculate, his fine eyes rolling, his slim hands waving continually, his handsome face alight with boyish enthusiasm and worship. At last he, too, went, and only Gaston remained, busy with the cafetiere that was his latest toy. The aroma of the boiling coffee filled the tent. She could imagine the servant's deft fingers manipulating the fragile glass and silver appliance. ”

“ He was leaning forward on the divan, his elbows on his knees, his face hidden in his hands. And it was as a stranger that he had come back to her, divested of the flowing robes that had seemed essentially a part of him; an unfamiliar figure in silk shirt, riding breeches and high brown boots, still dust-covered from the long ride. A thin tweed coat lay in a heap on the carpet—he must have flung it off after Gaston went, for the valet, with his innate tidiness, would never have left it lying on the floor. ”

“ In the evening the men became immersed in the projection of Saint Hubert's new book, for details of which he was drawing on the Sheik's knowledge, and long after Diana left them she could hear the two voices, both deep and musical, but Raoul's quicker and more emphatic, continuously rising and falling, till at last Raoul would go to his own tent and Gaston would come—noiseless and soft-toned as his master. ”

“ He had never led her to expect anything else. There was no link to bring them closer together, no bond between them. If she could have had the promise of a child. Alone though she was the sensitive colour flamed into her cheeks, and she hid her face in the pillows with a quivering sob. ”

“ Gaston can do all business and make all arrangements for you. He will take you to Marseilles, and if you need him he will go with you to Paris, Cherbourg, or London—whichever you wish. As you know, you can trust him absolutely. When you do not need him any longer, he will come back to me. I—I will not trouble you any more. You need never be afraid that I will come into your life again. You can forget these months in the desert and the uncivilised Arab who crossed your path. To keep out of your way is the only amends I can make. ”

“ Her hands clenched on her knees. At times she lay almost without breathing, straining to hear the faintest sound that would mean his return, and then again lest she should hear what she listened for. She longed for him passionately, and at the same time she was afraid, He had changed so much that there were moments when she had the curious feeling that it was a stranger who was coming back to her, and she both dreaded his coming and yearned for it with a singular combination of emotions. ”

“ There was nobody to hear the agonising sobs that shook her from head to foot. She could relax the control that she had put upon herself and which had seemed to be slowly turning her to stone. She could give way to the emotion that, suppressed, had welled up choking in her throat and gripped her forehead like red-hot bands eating into her brain. Tears were not easy to her. ”

“ The night grew hotter and the atmosphere more oppressive. Wrapped in a thin silk kimono Diana lay very still on the outside of the wide couch in the inner room, propped high with pillows that the shaded light of the little reading-lamp beside her might fall on the book she held, but she was not reading. ”

“ The contrast between that ride, when she had lain content in the curve of his strong arm, and the ride that she would take the next day was poignant. She closed her teeth on her trembling lip, her fingers tightened on the stock of the revolver, and a wild light came into her sad eyes. She could never go through with it. To what end would be the hideous torture? What was life without him?—Nothing and less than nothing. She could never give herself to another man. She was necessary to no one. Aubrey had no real need of her ”

“ But the happiness of ministering to him passed very swiftly. As he grew stronger he managed so that she was rarely alone with him, and he insisted on her riding twice every day, sometimes with Saint Hubert, sometimes with Henri, coolly avowing a preference for his own society or that of Gaston, who was beginning to get about again. Later, too, he was much occupied with headmen who came in from the different camps, and as the days passed she found herself more and more excluded from the intimacy that had been so precious. She was thrown much into the society of Raoul de Saint Hubert. ”

“ It was hard work sometimes, and there were days when he dreaded the daily rides, when the strain seemed almost more than he could bear, and he began to make tentative suggestions about resuming his wanderings, but always the Sheik pressed him to stay.
Ahmed Ben Hassan's final recovery was quick, and the camp soon settled down into normal conditions. The reinforcements were gone back to the different camps from which they had been drawn. There was no further need of them. Ibraheim Omair's tribe, with their leader dead, had broken up and scattered far to the south ”