She looked up and fancied that, for an instant, she saw something as ugly as terror in his eyes.

“Surely you know that people don’t ask permission to be suspicious of their fellow-men?” she said.

“No one here has any right to consider me or my actions,” he said, fierceness blazing out of him.  “I am a free man, and can do as I will.  No one has any right—­no one!”

Domini felt as if the words were meant for her, as if he had struck her.  She was so angry that she did not trust herself to speak, and instinctively she put her hand up to her breast, as a woman might who had received a blow.  She touched something small and hard that was hidden beneath her gown.  It was the little wooden crucifix Androvsky had thrown into the stream at Sidi-Zerzour.  As she realised that her anger died.  She was humbled and ashamed.  What was her religion if, at a word, she could be stirred to such a feeling of passion?

“I, at least, am not suspicious of you,” she said, choosing the very words that were most difficult for her to say just then.  “And Father Roubier—­if you included him—­is too fine-hearted to cherish unworthy suspicions of anyone.”

She got up.  Her voice was full of a subdued, but strong, emotion.

“Oh, Monsieur Androvsky!” she said.  “Do go over and see him.  Make friends with him.  Never mind yesterday.  I want you to be friends with him, with everyone here.  Let us make Beni-Mora a place of peace and good will.”

Then she went across the verandah quickly to her room, and passed in, closing the window behind her.

Dejeuner was brought into her sitting-room.  She ate it in solitude, and late in the afternoon she went out on the verandah.  She had made up her mind to spend an hour in the church.  She had told Father Roubier that she wanted to think something out.  Since she had left him the burden upon her mind had become heavier, and she longed to be alone in the twilight near the altar.  Perhaps she might be able to cast down the burden there.  In the verandah she stood for a moment and thought how wonderful was the difference between dawn and sunset in this land.  The gardens, that had looked like a place of departed and unhappy spirits when she rose that day, were now bathed in the luminous rays of the declining sun, were alive with the softly-calling voices of children, quivered with romance, with a dreamlike, golden charm.  The stillness of the evening was intense, enclosing the children’s voices, which presently died away; but while she was marvelling at it she was disturbed by a sharp noise of knocking.  She looked in the direction from which it came and saw Androvsky standing before the priest’s door.  As she looked, the door was opened by the Arab boy and Androvsky went in.

Then she did not think of the gardens any more.  With a radiant expression in her eyes she went down and crossed over to the church.  It was empty.  She went softly to a prie-dieu near the altar, knelt down and covered her eyes with her hands.