the most typical of his genius, appeared in 1905.  “The intellectual grip of the story,” says one critic, “cannot be denied, for it completely conquers the critical sense, and the ideas of the author insinuate themselves, as it were, among one’s inmost thoughts.”  Yet Mr. Hichens’ stories are popular, not only with literary connoisseurs, but also with the general public, inasmuch as they owe their fascination not so much to an extreme refinement of art as to their freshness of imagination and dramatic intensity.  This epitome of the “Garden of Allah” has been prepared by Mr. Hichens himself.

I.—­The Home of Peace

On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a verandah of the Hotel du Desert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria, gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of sunset.  The bell of the Catholic Church chimed.  She heard the throbbing of native drums in the village near by.  Tired with her long journey from England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.

Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental agony.  Her mother, Lady Rens, a member of one of England’s oldest Catholic families, but half Hungarian on the mother’s side, had run away when Domini was nineteen with a Hungarian musician, leaving her only child with her despairing and abandoned husband.  Lord Rens had become a Catholic out of love for his wife.  When he was deserted by her, he furiously renounced his faith, and eventually died blaspheming.  In vain through many years he had tried to detach his daughter from the religion of her guilty mother, now long since dead.  Domini had known how to resist; but the cruel contest had shaken her body and soul.

Now free, alone, she had left England to begin a new life far away from the scene of her misery.  Vaguely she had thought of the great desert, called by the Arabs “The Garden of Allah,” as the home of peace.  She had travelled there to find peace.  That day, at the gate of the desert, she had met a traveller, Doris Androvsky, a man of about thirty-six, powerfully built, tanned by the sun.  When she was about to get into the train at the station of El Akbara this man had rudely sprung in before her.  The train had begun to move, and Domini had sprung into it almost at the risk of her life.  Androvsky had not offered to help her, had not said a word of apology.  His gaucherie had almost revolted Domini.  Nevertheless, something powerful, mournful, passionate, and sincere in his personality had affected her, roused her interest.

Silently they had come into the desert together, strangers, almost at enmity the one with the other.  They were now staying in the same hotel in this oasis in the desert of Sahara.