And he lifted his eyes and fixed them upon the tower with a sort of stern intentness, as a man looks at something cruel, terrible.

She saw him do this.

“Let us ride quicker,” she said.  “To-night we must be in Beni-Mora.”

He said nothing, but he touched his horse with his heel.  His eyes were always fixed upon the tower, as if they feared to look at the desert any more.  She understood that when he had said “I will try to give you nothing more to bear for me,” he had not spoken idly.  He had waked up from the egoism of his despair.  He had been able to see more clearly into her heart, to feel more rightly what she was feeling than he had before.  As she watched him watching the tower, she had a sensation that a bond, a new bond between them, was chaining them together in a new way.  Was it not a bond that would be strong and lasting, that the future, whatever it held, would not be able to break?  Ties, sacred ties, that had bound them together might, must, be snapped asunder.  And the end was not yet.  She saw, as she gazed at the darkness of the palms of Beni-Mora, a greater darkness approaching, deeper than any darkness of palms, than any darkness of night.  But now she saw also a ray of light in the gloom, the light of the dawning strength, the dawning unselfishness in Androvsky.  And she resolved to fix her eyes upon it as he fixed his eyes upon the tower.

Just after sunset they rode into Beni-Mora in advance of the camp, which they had passed upon their way.  To the right were the trees of Count Anteoni’s garden.  Domini felt them, but she did not look towards them.  Nor did Androvsky.  They kept their eyes fixed upon the distance of the white road.  Only when they reached the great hotel, now closed and deserted, did she glance away.  She could not pass the tower without seeing it.  But she saw it through a mist of tears, and her hands trembled upon the reins they held.  For a moment she felt that she must break down, that she had no more strength left in her.  But they came to the statue of the Cardinal holding the double cross towards the desert like a weapon.  And she looked at it and saw the Christ.

“Boris,” she whispered, “there is the Christ.  Let us think only of that tonight.”

She saw him look at it steadily.

“You remember,” she said, at the bottom of the avenue of cypresses—­“at El-Largani—­Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis?”

“Yes, Domini.”

“We can be obedient too.  Let us be obedient too.”

When she said that, and looked at him, Androvsky felt as if he were on his knees before her, as he was upon his knees in the garden when he could not go away.  But he felt, too, that then, though he had loved her, he had not known how to love her, how to love anyone.  She had taught him now.  The lesson sank into his heart like a sword and like balm.  It was as if he were slain and healed by the same stroke.