“I heard that note on the night when I rode out of Beni-Mora to see the moon rise in the desert.  Boris, you remember that night?”

“Yes,” he answered.

He was gazing at the pool, with his face partly averted from her, one hand on the wall, the other resting on his knee.

“You were brave that night, Boris,” she said.

“I—­I wished to be—­I tried to be.  And if I had been—­”

He stopped, then went on:  “If I had been, Domini, really brave, if I had done what I meant to do that night, what would our lives have been to-day?”

“I don’t know.  We mustn’t think of that to-night.  We must think of the future.  Boris, there’s no life, no real life without bravery.  No man or woman is worthy of living who is not brave.”

He said nothing.

“Boris, let us—­you and I—­be worthy of living to-night—­and in the future.”

“Give me your hand then,” he answered.  “Give it me, Domini.”

But she did not give it to him.  Instead she went on, speaking a little more rapidly: 

“Boris, don’t rely too much on my strength.  I am only a woman, and I have to struggle.  I have had to struggle more than perhaps you will ever know.  You—­must not make—­make things impossible for me.  I am trying—­very hard—­to—­I’m—­you must not touch me to-night, Boris.”

She drew a little farther away from him.  A faint breath of air made the leaves of the palm trees rustle slightly, made the reeds move for an instant by the pool.  He laid his hand again on the wall from which he had lifted it.  There was a pleading sound in her voice which made him feel as if it were speaking close against his heart.

“I said I would tell you to-night where we are going.”

“Tell me now.”

“We are going back to Beni-Mora.  We are not very far off from Beni-Mora to-night—­not very far.”

“We are going to Beni-Mora!” he repeated in a dull voice.  “We are——­”

He sat up on the wall, looking straight into her face.

“Why?” he said.  His voice was sharp now, sharp with fear.

“Boris, do you want to be at peace, not with me, but with God?  Do you want to get rid of your burden of misery, which increases—­I know it—­day by day?”

“How can I?” he said hopelessly.

“Isn’t expiation the only way?  I think it is.”

“Expiation!  How—­how can—­I can never expiate my sin.”

“There’s no sin that cannot be expiated.  God isn’t merciless.  Come back with me to Beni-Mora.  That little church—­where you married me—­come back to it with me.  You could not confess to the—­to Father Beret.  I feel as if I knew why.  Where you married me you will—­you must—­make your confession.”

“To the priest who—­to Father Roubier!”

There was fierce protest in his voice.

“It does not matter who is the priest who will receive your confession.  Only make it there—­make it in the church at Beni-Mora where you married me.”