“But that’s where Count Anteoni went when he rode away from Beni-Mora that morning.”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Is it far from Amara?”

“Two hours’ ride across the desert.”

“But then Count Anteoni may be near us.  After he left he wrote to me and gave me his address at the marabout’s house.”

“If he is still with the marabout, Madame.”

They were close to the fountain now, and the marabout and his companion were coming straight towards them.

“If Madame will allow me I will salute the marabout,” said Batouch.

“Certainly.”

He sprang off his horse immediately, tied it up to the railing of the fountain, and went respectfully towards the approaching potentate to kiss his hand.  Domini saw the marabout stop and Batouch bend down, then lift himself up and suddenly move back as if in surprise.  The Arab who was with the marabout seemed also surprised.  He held out his hand to Batouch, who took it, kissed it, then kissed his own hand, and turning, pointed towards Domini.  The Arab spoke a word to the marabout, then left him, and came rapidly forward to the fountain.  As he drew close to her she saw a face browned by the sun, a very small, pointed beard, a pair of intensely bright eyes surrounded by wrinkles.  These eyes held her.  It seemed to her that she knew them, that she had often looked into them and seen their changing expressions.  Suddenly she exclaimed: 

“Count Anteoni!”

“Yes, it is I!”

He held out his hand and clasped hers.

“So you have started upon your desert journey,” he added, looking closely at her, as he had often looked in the garden.

“Yes.”

“And as I ventured to advise—­that last time, do you remember?”

She recollected his words.

“No,” she replied, and there was a warmth of joy, almost of pride, in her voice.  “I am not alone.”

Count Anteoni was standing with one hand on her horse’s neck.  As she spoke, his hand dropped down.

“I have been away from Beni-Hassan,” he said slowly.  “The marabout and I have been travelling in the south and only returned yesterday.  I have heard no news for a long time from Beni-Mora, but I know.  You are Madame Androvsky.”

“Yes,” she answered; “I am Madame Androvsky.”

There was a silence between them.  In it she heard the dripping water in the fountain.  At last Count Anteoni spoke again.

“It was written,” he said quietly.  “It was written in the sand.”

She thought of the sand-diviner and was silent.  An oppression of spirit had suddenly come upon her.  It seemed to her connected with something physical, something obscure, unusual, such as she had never felt before.  It was, she thought, as if her body at that moment became more alive than it had ever been, and as if that increase of life within her gave to her a peculiar uneasiness.  She was startled.  She even felt alarmed, as at the faint approach of something strange, of something that was going to alter her life.  She did not know at all what it was.  For the moment a sense of confusion and of pain beset her, and she was scarcely aware with whom she was, or where.  The sensation passed and she recovered herself and met Count Anteoni’s eyes quietly.