"Weren't you sure?" he asked. "When I found the tent-pegs up, I knew you'd gone; and I followed the footprints, because it's not safe for you to be out in the night alone."
"Safer than in my tent, if he——" she began breathlessly, then checked herself in haste. She was silent for a minute, looking up at Max, who had come to a stand on the edge of her little platform. Then, for the first time since she had begged him to join the caravan instead of going back to Bel-Abbés, she broke down and cried bitterly.
"What am I to do, Soldier?" she sobbed. "You know—I never told you anything, but—you know how it is with me?"
"I know," said Max.
"I've been always hoping I should die somehow, and—and that would make an end," the girl wept. "Other people have died since we have started: three strong men and a woman, one from a viper's bite and the others with fever. But I can't die! Soldier, you never let me die!"
"I don't mean to!" Max tried to force a ring of cheerfulness into his voice, though black despair filled his heart. "You've got to live for—your father."
"I hope I shall never see him again!" she cried sharply. "He'd know the instant he looked into my eyes that I was unhappy. I couldn't bear it. Oh, Soldier, if only I had let you take me back when you begged to, even as late as that morning—before Father Dupré came out from Touggourt. But it makes things worse to think of that now—of what might have been!"
"Let's think of what will be, when we get through to Egypt," Max encouraged her.
"I don't want to get through. The rest of you, yes, but not I! Soldier, what am I to do if he tries to make—if he won't let me go on living alone?"
"He shall let you," said Max between his teeth.