It was late in the afternoon when she woke. Still heavy and confused with sleep, at first she was conscious only of the feeling of bodily comfort that enveloped her. Her tired limbs were at rest and she lay propped against soft cushions that eased the dull ache of her wounded shoulders. With a little sigh of physical content, she nestled deeper into the silken pillows, inhaling the faint oriental perfume that clung about them, wondering vaguely when Ann would come to waken her. Ann? Ann would never come to her again! Ann was gone, the victim of petty spite and tyranny. And she—With a strangled cry she started up, trembling violently, staring around her in bewilderment. Then remembrance came with a rush, and sobbing with relief she sank back on the cushions of the wide divan where once before she had slept with such curious confidence.
Wonderingly she looked about the room, at the simple but costly Arab furnishings, at the well stocked gun rack that stood near the couch on which she was lying, at the litter of masculine belongings that with their suggestion of intimacy served to bring home to her even more fully than before the significance of what she had done. His room! The hot blood flamed into her cheeks and she hid her face in the pillows, whispering his name, shivering with a new sweet fear and joy that made her long for him and yet shrink from even the thought of his coming.
How long since he had brought her here? How long since she had fallen asleep in his arms on the top of the sun-bathed hill? The room was perceptibly darker when at last she raised her head and sat up, listening for some sound to penetrate from the adjoining room that should assure her of his nearness. But she heard only the distant hum of the scattered camp—the shrill squeal of an angry stallion, the doleful long-drawn bray of a donkey and, near at hand, the monotonous creak and whine of some unknown piece of mechanism whose use she could not guess. Strange, unfamiliar noises that yet seemed so oddly familiar, like the faint echoes of a far-off memory urging the remembrance of another long forgotten life when she had lived and loved in close proximity to the sounds that now thrilled her with vague wonderings. Did love ever die—was this passion that had overwhelmed her so suddenly only the reawakening of a love that had been born in bygone ages? Had she loved him then! Had he too lived in that remote past that seemed struggling for recognition? Had their wandering souls, long desolate and alone triumphed over the barrier that separated them to converge once more and know again the transient rapture of earthly happiness?
With a tremulous smile she slipped from the couch and went slowly to the little dressing table at the further end of the room. Curiously she stared at herself in the tiny mirror, frowning at the weary white face she saw reflected.
The close-drawn haick had been removed and, tumbled by the heavy head-dress, her hair lay loose in curling waves about her shoulders. The colour crept into her cheeks again as she strove to roll it up into something approaching order. And as she wrestled with the few pins that remained to her, two hands placed suddenly on her shoulders made her start violently. “Must you hide it all away? It was very pretty as it was.” There was a new note in his voice, a new hint of definite ownership in his manner as he coolly unloosened the soft coils she had hastily bound up and drew her to him. But she dared not meet his look and, surrendering to his arms, she hid her face against him in an agony of shyness.
With a tender word of expostulation he slipped his hand under her chin and raised her head. His ardent love was crying out for expression but the shamed piteousness of her eyes checked the passionate words that rushed to his lips. What was his love worth if self came before consideration? He stooped his cheek to hers.
“Do you think I don’t understand,” he murmured, “do you think I don’t realise how—strange it is? But you can’t be shy with me, dear. Only remember that I love you, that I’d give my life to keep you happy. I’ll do all I can to make it easy for you—” But even as he spoke the restraint he imposed on himself slipped for a moment and he crushed her to him conclusively. “Child, child, if you knew how I have longed for you! If you knew what it means to me to hold you in my arms—here—to know that you are mine, mine, utterly. Marny—” He pulled himself up sharply with a gesture of compunction, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Forgive me, dear,” he said, gently, “I didn’t mean to be rough with you—I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”
The tears that were so near the surface welled into her eyes and she looked at him strangely.