Through the dusty palm-grove behind the hotel he hastened, and up the slope of the sandy hill beyond, from the summit of which he could see the tent standing in the distance amongst the rolling dunes. Thereat he broke into a run, and went leaping down into the little valleys and scrambling up the low hills beyond, like a captive freed from the toils.
A few minutes later, mounting another eminence, he found himself immediately at the back of the tent, and here a native boy, who had been lying drowsing upon the warm sand, rose to his feet, and, in answer to a rapid question, told him that the lady was at work at the doorway of the tent.
Jim hurried forward, his heart beating, and the next moment he was face to face with Monimé.
“Jim!” she exclaimed in astonishment, throwing down her palette and brushes. “My dear boy, I thought you were in England.”
“So I was,” he laughed. “I was there just two days, and then ... I gave it up.”
He could restrain himself no further. “Oh, Monimé,” he cried, and flung his arms about her, kissing her throat and her cheeks and her mouth. She made a momentary show of protest, but her face was smiling; and soon he felt that droop of the limbs and heard that inhalation of the breath, and saw that closing of the eyes which, the world over, are the signs of a woman’s capitulation. No further words then were spoken; but, each enfolded in the arms of the other, with lips pressed to lips, they hung as it were suspended between matter and spirit, while the sun tumbled from the skies, the hills of the desert were shattered, the valleys were cleft in twain, and there came into being for them a new earth and a new heaven.
When at length they stood back from one another, bewildered and spellbound, their whole existence had undergone an irreparable change; and each gazed at the other with unveiled eyes which revealed a naked soul. Now at last, as by an instantaneous flash of the miraculous hand of Nature, she was become blood of his blood, bone of his bone, and they two were for ever merged into one flesh.
Quietly, automatically, she put away her brushes and paints; then, coming back to him as he stood staring at her with a dazed expression upon his swarthy face, she put her arms about his neck and laid her lips upon his mouth.
“I never knew,” she whispered, “until you had gone that I belonged to you body and soul.”
He threw his head back and laughed in his exaltation. “To-morrow,” he said, “I shall go to the Consulate, and notify them that we are going to be married.”