And then she felt his hands on hers, and his fingers unfastening hers one by one from her grasp upon her curls; and she lay quite still; with a lovely warm feeling creeping over and through her, because she knew by the gentleness of the touch and the firmness of it that she would be gathered up safely into his arms, and carried away to happiness.

And, just as she had thought he would, he put his arms around her and lifted her like a feather and crushed her up against his heart and got to his feet and lifted his head to the glory of the sky.

But she would not look up; she could not, because she had taken the jewel of her youth and flung it carelessly far from her, so that she lay as a woman in his arms, and a woman who had looked deep in the passing of a few hours into the heart of those things which have to do with love.

The wind whispered in her ear as it carelessly touched her face, and it whispered in a voice out of the past.

And this is what it whispered: 

“. . . for love will have come to her, maybe for a day, maybe for a second of time, but a love which will mingle her soul with the soul of her desert lover . . . yet it is the love of the soul that endureth for ever, yea, even if the body of the woman passeth into another’s keeping.”

And Ben Kelham, feeling her shiver and thinking, in the simplicity of his heart, that she was cold and hungry, tucked the satin cloak with sable collar still closer round her, then looked across to the east, where lay a pall of smoke upon the air.

“I am taking you back, Damaris my little love.”  He spoke slowly, with his eyes on the burning tents, the significance of which had sunk deep into his heart.  “Won’t you look up?  Won’t you just say that you will marry me, so that I can tell everyone directly we get back?”

He put her on her feet when she suddenly struggled and pushed against him, and stared aghast when she bowed her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Damaris—­dear—­what is it?  Don’t you want to marry me?”

Damaris nodded, her lovely head which glistened like a hall of silk in the blaze of the sun.

“You do?   You will?--Then what are you crying for?   Oh!   Damaris------”

The words came muffled as she shook with sobs.

“Because of the scandal, Ben.  Because of what people will say about me—­I mean about me when they know I am engaged to—­to you—­they will—­laugh at you behind your back—­they will—­they will know about—­about——­”

He pulled her to him quite roughly and pressed her head against his shoulder, which it barely reached.

“Laugh!” he said.  “Laugh—­at me—­or you!  I should just like to hear them, darling.  There is a way out of all this, sweetheart, somewhere, and I am going to find it, and all that has happened, beloved, rests on my shoulders, and heaven knows they are broad enough to bear it.  And if we have hurt others, darling,”—­and he looked over his shoulder to the tents,—­“it has been through my carelessness, and we shall be shown a way in which to try and make amends.  Laugh, dear?  Let them laugh, dear heart, when they see how we love each other.”