She was silent. There was a sound of hopelessness in his voice that frightened her. It was like the voice of a man rejecting remedies because he knew that he was stricken with a mortal disease.
"Why did that priest come here to-night?" he asked.
They were both standing up, but now he sat down in a chair heavily, taking his hand from hers.
"Merely to pay a visit of courtesy."
"At night?"
He spoke suspiciously. Again she thought of Mogar, and of how, on his return from the dunes, he had said to her, "There is a light in the tower." A painful sensation of being surrounded with mystery came upon her. It was hateful to her strong and frank nature. It was like a miasma that suffocated her soul.
"Oh, Boris," she exclaimed bluntly, "why should he not come at night?"
"Is such a thing usual?"
"But he was visiting the tents over there--of the nomads, and he had heard of our arrival. He knew it was informal, but, as he said, in the desert one forgets formalities."
"And--and did he ask for anything?"
"Ask?"
"I saw--on the table-coffee and--and there was liqueur."
"Naturally I offered him something."
"He didn't ask?"
"But, Boris, how could he?"
After a moment of silence he said:
"No, of course not."
He shifted in his chair, crossed one leg over the other, put his hands on the arms of it, and continued:
"What did he talk about?"
"A little about Amara."
"That was all?"
"He hadn't been here long when you came--"
"Oh."
"But he told me one thing that was horrible," she added, obedient to her instinct always to tell the complete truth to him, even about trifles which had nothing to do with their lives or their relation to each other.
"Horrible!" Androvsky said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward in his chair.
She sat down by him. They both had their backs to the light and were in shadow.
"Yes."
"What was it about--some crime here?"
"Oh, no! It was about that liqueur you saw on the table."
Androvsky was sitting upon a basket chair. As she spoke it creaked under a violent movement that he made.
"How could--what could there be that was horrible connected with that?" he asked, speaking slowly.
"It was made by a monk, a Trappist--"
He got up from his chair and went to the opening of the tent.
"What--" she began, thinking he was perhaps feeling the pain in his head more severely.
"I only want to be in the air. It's rather hot there. Stay where, you are, Domini, and--well, what else?"
He stepped out into the sand, and stood just outside the tent in its shadow.
"It was invented by a Trappist monk of the monastery of El-Largani, who disappeared from the monastery. He had taken the final vows. He had been there for over twenty years."
"He--he disappeared--did the priest say?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"I don't think--I am sure he doesn't know. But what does it matter?
The awful thing is that he should leave the monastery after taking the eternal vows--vows made to God."
After a moment, during which neither of them spoke and Androvsky stood quite still in the sand, she added:
"Poor man!"
Androvsky came a step towards her, then paused.
"Why do you say that, Domini?"
"I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive."
"Agony?"
"Of mind, of heart. You--I know, Boris, you can't feel with me on certain subjects--yet--"
"Yet!" he said.
"Boris"--she got up and came to the tent door, but not out upon the sand--"I dare to hope that some day perhaps----"
She was silent, looking towards him with her brave, steady eyes.
"Agony of heart?" Androvsky said, recurring to her words. "You think-- what--you pity that man then?"
"And don't you?"
"I--what has he to do with--us? Why should we--?"
"I know. But one does sometimes pity men one never has seen, never will see, if one hears something frightful about them. Perhaps--don't smile, Boris--perhaps it was seeing that liqueur, which he had actually made in the monastery when he was at peace with God, perhaps it was seeing that, that has made me realise--such trifles stir the imagination, set it working--at any rate--"
She broke off. After a minute, during which he said nothing, she continued:
"I believe the priest felt something of the same sort. He could not drink the liqueur that man had made, although he intended to."
"But--that might have been for a different reason," Androvsky said in a harsh voice; "priests have strange ideas. They often judge things cruelly, very cruelly."
"Perhaps they do. Yes; I can imagine that Father Roubier of Beni-Mora might, though he is a good man and leads a saintly life."
"Those are sometimes the most cruel. They do not understand."
"Perhaps not. It may be so. But this priest--he's not like that."
She thought of his genial, bearded face, his expression when he said, "We are ruffians of the sun," including himself with the desert men, his boisterous laugh.
"His fault might be the other way."
"Which way?"
"Too great a tolerance."
"Can a man be too tolerant towards his fellow-man?" said Androvsky.
There was a strange sound of emotion in his deep voice which moved her. It seemed to her--why, she did not know--to steal out of the depth of something their mutual love had created.
"The greatest of all tolerance is God's," she said. "I'm sure--quite sure--of that."
Androvsky came in out of the shadow of the tent, took her in his arms with passion, laid his lips on hers with passion, hot, burning force and fire, and a hard tenderness that was hard because it was intense.
"God will bless you," he said. "God will bless you. Whatever life brings you at the end you must--you must be blessed by Him."
"But He has blessed me," she whispered, through tears that rushed from her eyes, stirred from their well-springs by his sudden outburst of love for her. "He has blessed me. He has given me you, your love, your truth."
Androvsky released her as abruptly as he had taken her in his arms, turned, and went out into the desert.