“The desert!” Androvsky whispered.

Suddenly he drew away from the door and walked out into the street.  Lines of carriages stood there waiting to be hired.  He beckoned to one, a victoria with a pair of small Arab horses.  When it was in front of the hotel he said to Domini: 

“Will you get in, Domini?”

She obeyed.  Androvsky said to the mettse driver: 

“Drive to the Belvedere.  Drive round the park till I tell you to return.”

The man whipped his horses, and they rattled down the broad street, past the brilliantly-lighted cafes, the Cercle Militaire, the palace of the Resident, where Zouaves were standing, turned to the left and were soon out on a road where a tram line stretched between villas, waste ground and flat fields.  In front of them rose a hill with a darkness of trees scattered over it.  They reached it, and began to mount it slowly.  The lights of the city shone below them.  Domini saw great sloping lawns dotted with streets and by trees.  Scents of hidden flowers came to her in the night, and she heard a whirr of insects.  Still they mounted, and presently reached the top of the hill.

“Stop!” said Androvsky to the driver.

He drew up his horses.

“Wait for us here.”

Androvsky got out.

“Shall we walk a little way?” he said to Domini.

“Yes—­yes.”

She got out too, and they walked slowly along the deserted road.  Below them she saw the lights of ships gliding upon the lakes, the bright eyes of a lighthouse, the distant lamps of scattered villages along the shores, and, very far off, a yellow gleam that dominated the sea beyond the lakes and seemed to watch patiently all those who came and went, the pilgrims to and from Africa.  That gleam shone in Carthage.

From the sea over the flats came to them a breeze that had a savour of freshness, of cool and delicate life.

They walked for some time without speaking, then Domini said: 

“From the cemetery of El-Largani you looked out over this, didn’t you, Boris?”

“Yes, Domini,” he answered.  “It was then that the voice spoke to me.”

“It will never speak again.  God will not let it speak again.”

“How can you know that?”

“We are tried in the fire, Boris, but we are not burnt to death.”

She said it for herself, to reassure herself, to give a little comfort to her own soul.

“To-night I feel as if it were not so,” he answered.  “When we came to the hotel it seemed—­I thought that I could not go on.”

“And now?”

“Now I do not know anything except that this is my last night with you.  And, Domini, that seems to me to be absolutely incredible although I know it.  I cannot imagine any future away from you, any life in which I do not see you.  I feel as if in parting from you I am parting from myself, as if the thing left would be no more a man, but only a broken husk.  Can I pray without you, love God without you?”