“Domini, I’ve borne something in silence.  I haven’t spoken.  I wanted to speak.  I tried—­but I did not.  I bore my punishment—­you don’t know, you’ll never know what I felt last—­last night—­when—­I’ve borne that.  But there’s one thing I can’t bear.  I’ve lived a lie with you.  My love for you overcame me.  I fell.  I have told you that I fell.  Don’t—­don’t because of that—­don’t take away your heart from me entirely.  Domini—­Domini—­don’t do that.”

She heard a sound of despair in his voice.

“Oh, Boris,” she said, “if you knew!  There was only one moment when I fancied my heart was leaving you.  It passed almost before it came, and now—­”

“But,” he interrupted, “do you know—­do you know that since—­since I spoke, since I told you, you’ve—­you’ve never touched me?”

“Yes, I know it,” she replied quietly.

Something told him to be silent then.  Something told him to wait till the night came and the camp was pitched once more.

They rested at noon for several hours, as it was impossible to travel in the heat of the day.  The camp started an hour before they did.  Only Batouch remained behind to show them the way to Ain-la-Hammam, where they would pass the following night.  When Batouch brought the horses he said: 

“Does Madame know the meaning of Ain-la-Hammam?”

“No,” said Domini.  “What is it?”

“Source des tourterelles,” replied Batouch.  “I was there once with an English traveller.”

“Source des tourterelles,” repeated Domini.  “Is it beautiful, Batouch?  It sounds as if it ought to be beautiful.”

She scarcely knew why, but she had a longing that Ain-la-Hammam might be tender, calm, a place to soothe the spirit, a place in which Androvsky might be influenced to listen to what she had to tell him without revolt, without despair.  Once he had spoken about the influence of place, about rising superior to it.  But she believed in it, and she waited, almost anxiously, for the reply of Batouch.  As usual it was enigmatic.

“Madame will see,” he answered.  “Madame will see.  But the Englishman——­”

“Yes?”

“The Englishman was ravished.  ‘This,’ he said to me, ’this, Batouch, is a little Paradise!’ And there was no moon then.  To-night there will be a moon.”

“Paradise!” exclaimed Androvsky.

He sprang upon his horse and pulled up the reins.  Domini said no more.  They had started late.  It was night when they reached Ain-la-Hammam.  As they drew near Domini looked before her eagerly through the pale gloom that hung over the sand.  She saw no village, only a very small grove of palms and near it the outline of a bordj.  The place was set in a cup of the Sahara.  All around it rose low hummocks of sand.  On two or three of them were isolated clumps of palms.  Here the eyes roamed over no vast distances.  There was little suggestion of space.  She drew up her horse on one of the hummocks and gazed down.  She heard doves murmuring in their soft voices among the trees.  The tents were pitched near the bordj.