“Have you ever been in love, Carden?” Kelham asked abruptly, unable to control the question.

“There is no have-been in love.  You either love or you do not love.  Do you?”

Ben Kelham nodded his head.

“Then, if you do, why, in the name of Allah who is your God as well as mine, are you here?  Why are you not at the feet of this woman, stricken with wonder and humility before the gifts the great God has given you?  Why do you leave her exposed to the temptations of the East, where has been wrecked the soul of many a white woman?  What is the killing of wild beasts compared to the look of the woman’s eyes?  Where are your eyes, the eyes of your soul?  What is this love you speak of which lets you drop the jewel from between your fingers as you would drop the half-consumed cigarette upon the ground?”

It was the prisoner’s last despairing cry as the prison-door swings to, shutting out the sun, the song of birds, the voice of children; it was the beggar hungering for a crust, crying against the wasted abundance of the rich man’s table.

“What is this love you speak of, this love which lets you pass your days in the shadow of another woman, a woman brown as a burned cake, as comely as a stuffed pillow, who lies in wait to kill the king of beasts?  Yes!  I know; in the East all things are known.  I know whom it is you love, and it is for her that I dare speak as men should not speak of woman.  Go to her; tarry not; go and heal the wound to her pride, her heart, her love, lest in her pain she should fly to the first hand for succour.”

Ben Kelham sprang to his feet.

“Do you think, if my love was returned, Carden, that I should be here?”

“Love!” The man’s voice was not raised one tone, but the tent vibrated with the passionate words.  “Are you such a coward that you run away at the first hurt?  When the ball struck you in the face at Lords, did you retire—­hurt?  No; you stuck it, and scored a century!  Are you such a dullard that you cannot read beneath a woman’s yes and no?  Love!  Do you know what love means?  What would you do for love?  Could you forgive in love?”

Kelham stared at the man who, word for word, repeated, the question Damaris had asked on the night he had proposed to her.

“If you heard tongues gossiping out of jealousy of the woman, you loved; if you found her in a situation which could not easily be explained; if she, hurt, wounded, had run like a little child to another to beg for balm for her wound,—­tell me, would you forgive her?  Tell me!”

There was a strange insistency in the repeated question and a deep anxiety in his eyes, which passed as Kelham laughed.

It was the genuine, honest laugh of the man who loves and is willing to shoulder the burdens, great and small, which love brings in her train.

“You say there is no ‘have-been’ in love, Carden.  I say there is no question of forgiveness in love.  You love, and there is no room anywhere for anything else but love.”