And, as though he had added “Obey!” the younger man sank back in his chair, his hands contracting nervously.

“I went back to El Teb,” he said; “I walked like a dreaming man.  My sleep was haunted by her beauty; night after night, when at last I fell asleep, instantly I saw her face, and her dark eyes opening into mine in childish bewilderment; day after day I rode out to the fallen pillar and descended to that dark chamber where she lay alone.  Then there came a time when I could not endure the thought of her lying there alone.  I had never dared to touch her.  Horror of what might happen had held me aloof lest she crumble at my touch to that awful powder which I had trodden on.

“I did not know what to do; my Arabs had begun to whisper among themselves, suspicious of my absences, impatient to break camp, perhaps, and roam on once more.  Perhaps they believed I had discovered treasure somewhere; I am not sure.  At any rate, dread of their following me, determination to take my dead away with me, drove me into action; and that day when I reached her silent chamber I lighted my candle, and, leaning above her for one last look, I touched her shoulder with my finger tip.

“It was a strange sensation.  Prepared for a dreadful dissolution, utterly unprepared for cool, yielding flesh, I almost dropped where I stood.  For her body was neither cold nor warm, neither dust-dry nor moist; neither the skin of the living nor the dead.  It was firm, almost stiff, yet not absolutely without a certain hint of flexibility.

“The appalling wonder of it consumed me; fear, incredulity, terror, apathy succeeded each other; then slowly a fierce shrinking happiness swept me in every fiber.

“This marvelous death, this triumph of beauty over death, was mine.  Never again should she lie here alone through the solitudes of night and day; never again should the dignity of Death lack the tribute demanded of Life.  Here was the appointed watcher—­I, who had found her alone in the wastes of the world—­all alone on the outermost edges of the world—­a child, dead and unguarded.  And standing there beside her I knew that I should never love again.”

He straightened up, stretching out his arm:  “I did not intend to carry her away to what is known as Christian burial.  How could I consign her to darkness again, with all its dreadful mockery of marble, all its awful emblems?

“This lovely stranger was to be my guest forever.  The living should be near her while she slept so sweetly her slumber through the centuries; she should have warmth, and soft hangings and sunlight and flowers; and her unconscious ears should be filled with the pleasant stir of living things. . . .  I have a house in the country, a very old house among meadows and young woodlands.  And I—­I had dreamed of giving this child a home—­”

His voice broke; he buried his head in his hands a moment; but when he lifted it again his features were hard as steel.