She was just midway between the tents and her stables when she stopped dead, with ears pricked forward.

Save for the silvery mane and tail blown by the night-wind she might have been a statue carved out of marble, so still was she.

Then she suddenly backed and reared a foot or two, then backed again; wheeled; started towards the tents; stopped and wheeled again.

She trembled from head to foot, the beautiful terrified creature; great eyes rolling, little feet sending the sand flying as she moved continually on one spot.

There was nothing to see as she stood, looking east; the tents were behind her, her stables in a straight line from them to the west; there was absolutely no sound, none at all until she neighed.

She neighed until the desert rang with the sound, neighed until the horses in the stables some miles away pulled at their halters and lashed out on every side; then she reared and wheeled as she stood straight on her slender hind-legs, then, crashing to the ground, with a convulsive leap was off into the desert.

Neither did she return for many days; nor was she seen until that dawn when her sayis found her in front of the middle tent, snuffing at the closed flap.

* * * * * *

But the flap was not closed this night, as Hugh Carden Ali sat on the couch of wood and looked at the girl who sat beside him.

She stared down at her hands, which pleated and flattened and re-pleated the satin of her skirt, and her face was as white as her neck and her arms, which shone like lilies kissed by the sun, under the light of the orange lamp.

He waited for her to speak, for it was not for him to guide or influence her in any way by spoken word.

He led her to the wooden couch, which had perforce to serve as seat as there was none other in the tent, and took her cloak, passing his hand gently across the sable collar which encircled her throat; and he glimpsed the hurt of her heart down in the depths of her eyes when she looked up at him and put out her hand and stopped him when, murmuring something about coffee, he turned to the entrance.

“I could not drink it, thank you,” she whispered.   “I--I want------” and
stopped and looked down and pleated the satin over her knee and flattened
it with her palm.

She was terrified at the desperate step she had taken—­and well she might be.  She was strung to a great pitch of nervous excitement through the exhilaration of her tearing ride; she was stubbornly determined to prevent the finger of scorn from pointing in her direction; but she was finding a subtle salve to the smart of the wound to her pride in the romantic setting of the wonderful picture made by the man beside her.

In faith, I see no real excuse whatever in exoneration of her mad impulse, unless it be in her education—­or, rather, want of it—­and in the fact that she was younger than her years.