Diana flung one arm across her face to shut him out from her sight. Her heart was breaking, and she longed with a feeling of sick misery to crawl to his feet, but a remnant of pride kept her back.
He spoke at length in the same level, toneless voice. "I will take you to the first desert station outside of Oran, where you can join the train. For your own sake I must not be seen with you in Oran, as I am known there. If you should by any chance be recognised or your identity should leak out, you can say that for reasons of your own you extended your trip, that your messages miscarried, anything that occurs to you. But it is not at all likely to happen. There are many travellers passing through Oran. Gaston can do all business and make all arrangements for you. He will take you to Marseilles, and if you need him he will go with you to Paris, Cherbourg, or London—whichever you wish. As you know, you can trust him absolutely. When you do not need him any longer, he will come back to me. I—I will not trouble you any more. You need never be afraid that I will come into your life again. You can forget these months in the desert and the uncivilised Arab who crossed your path. To keep out of your way is the only amends I can make."
She flung up her head. Quick, suspicious jealousy and love and pride contending nearly choked her. "Why don't you speak the truth?" she cried wildly. "Why don't you say what you really mean?—that you have no further use for me, that it amused you to take me and torture me to satisfy your whim, but the whim is passed. It does not amuse you any longer. You are tired of me and so you get rid of me with all precautions. Do you think the truth can hurt me? Nothing that you can do can hurt me now. You made me the vile thing I am for your pleasure, and now for your pleasure you throw me on one side…. How many times a year does Gaston take your discarded mistresses back to France?" Her voice broke into a terrible laugh.
He swung round swiftly and flung his arms about her, crushing her to him savagely, forgetting his strength, his eyes blazing. "God! Do you think it is easy to let you go, that you are taunting me like this? Do you think I haven't suffered, that I'm not suffering now? Don't you know that it is tearing my heart out by the roots to send you away? My life will be hell without you. Do you think I haven't realised what an infinitely damned brute I've been? I didn't love you when I took you, I only wanted you to satisfy the beast in me. And I was glad that you were English that I could make you suffer as an Englishman made my mother suffer, I so loathed the whole race. I have been mad all my life, I think—up till now. I thought I didn't care until the night I heard that Ibraheim Omair had got you, and then I knew that if anything happened to you the light of my life was out, and that I would only wait to kill Ibraheim before I killed myself."
His arms were like a vice hurting her, but they felt like heaven, and she clung to him speechless, her heart throbbing wildly. He looked down long and deeply into her eyes, and the light in his—the light that she had longed for—made her tremble. His brown head bent lower and lower, and his lips had almost touched her when he drew back, and the love in his eyes faded into misery.
"I mustn't kiss you," he said huskily, as he put her from him gently. "I don't think I should have the courage to let you go if I did. I didn't mean to touch you."
He turned from her with a little gesture of weariness.
Fear fled back into her eyes. "I don't want to go," she whispered faintly.
He paused by the writing-table and took up the revolver he had loaded earlier, breaking it absently, spinning the magazine between his finger and thumb, and replaced it before answering.
"You don't understand. There is no other way," he said dully.