“I found out, later, that he would have collected some fifty thousand dollars’ insurance and would have returned to France to marry another girl.”
“The beast,” was all Carl could say.
The girl continued, “I would have carried out his orders but for an incident I have never forgotten. As I was about to swing myself over the rail, a gentleman came up to hand me a handkerchief I had dropped in my excitement. He kept talking to me, not realizing, I suppose, my true intentions.”
Carl, his mouth half-opened in astonishment and looking at her as if dazed, reached across the table to clasp her hand, when she said, “I believe it was you who saved my life.”
Silently they gazed at each other, the tears coming to their eyes. The girl had difficulty to keep from crying aloud, while Carl, deeply moved, could find no word to relieve the situation. Words are helpless things at times and at best they fail to convey our true feelings. Volumes were spoken in silence by the look in their eyes and the pressure of Carl’s hand.
The girl’s hands trembled in his clasp, although he felt a slight pressure of them on his own. He drew one hand away to reach for a handkerchief so that she might dry her eyes. For a moment the gaze of the few people still present, caused him embarrassment. What he would have liked to have done was to take her in his arms, to console her and kiss the tears away.
Steeling herself against the emotion which was striving to get the better of her, Sana dried her eyes and attempted to smile. It was like the first sunbeam that shoots from out the rifts of the departing storm clouds. It served to restore the equilibrium which had been so sorely disturbed by the emotional interlude.
It was difficult for them to continue the conversation on this subject, so they had some refreshments, talking the while of everything and nothing. It was the most natural thing for the conversation to drift back to New York, and drift there it did.
They spoke of many things of mutual interest. Carl told her of his work at home, of his books, and why he visited the Sahara. Still puzzled though as to why Sana should be here in the desert, he asked her the reason.
“That, too, is part of my story. But I shall begin at a point before I was born.