"Be at your ease, mother," Valentine answered; "although we are in the desert, I have found you a retreat in which you will not only be protected from every danger, but where it will be possible for me to see you at least once a week."
Valentine, like all men endowed with a firm and resolute character, instead of turning the difficulty, had preferred to attack it in front, persuaded that the harder the blow he dealt was, the shorter time its effect would last, and he should be enabled to lessen its consequences more easily. The old lady stopped her horse instinctively and looked at her son with tear-laden eyes.
"What do you say, Valentine?" she asked in a trembling voice; "Are you going to leave me?"
"You do not quite understand me, mother," he replied; "after so long a separation I could not consent to keep away from you."
"Alas!" she murmured.
"Still, my dear mother," he continued stoically, "you will have to convince yourself of one fact, that desert life is very different from civilised life."
"I know it, already," she said sighing.
"Very good," he continued; "this life has claims which it would take too long to explain to you, and necessitate constant marches and counter marches, going at one moment here, at another there, without apparent reason, living from hand to mouth, and eternally on horseback."
"Come," my boy, "do not make me suffer longer, but tell me at once what you wish to arrive at."
"At this, mother, that this life of unending fatigue and danger may be very agreeable to a young man like myself, endowed with an iron constitution, and long accustomed to its incidents; but that it is materially impossible for you, at your age, weak and sickly as you are: now you are my only comfort and treasure, mother; I have found you again by a miracle, and am determined to keep you as long as possible. For that reason I must not expose you through an improper weakness, to fatigues and privations which would kill you in a week."