The horse’s blood flowed freely under the drover’s spurs; but the horseman’s heart was bleeding within him a thousand times more cruelly.
All mere trickery and craft! He repeated it again and again to himself, and would not believe it.
That she was false to the core, he firmly believed, and, by dint of thinking about it, soon ceased to believe it. That would have been too horrible, really! His self-pity and the feeling that he must be proud of her forced back the thought, which, driven away for a moment, returned again at once with more force as a sure, proven, established fact. It returned like a flash of light which hurt his eyes. Yes, yes, she was false to the core! yes, from pure wantonness the woman had deceived him again and again since the day of the bath, when she exhibited her naked body to him with the deliberate purpose of leading him astray, of leaving him, some day, stranded in the desert, without his fiancée, without his love—alone.
And he struggled desperately to see her again—in his memory at least—in order to question her crafty features, but, try as he would, his mind was unable to restore the picture, drowned as it was beneath a wavering, irritating mist. He opened his eyes to their fullest extent, as if, by causing them to express a fixed determination to see her again, he could compel her to appear before him in flesh and blood. And he no longer saw the trees or the moor that lay before him, or the sky or the horizon, but neither did he see her whose image he sought to evoke. Then he suddenly closed his eyes, and for a brief second—in the darkness—he caught a glimpse of her. Was it really she? He had not time to recognize her. Once, however, the image became clearer, and he saw her; but still it was only a shadowy face, still veiled with falsehood and impenetrable to him.
She went to the farther end of the Allée des Alyscamps, between the rows of tall poplars, amid the stone monuments, and lighted a fire of twigs, to give her light enough to look about and select a spot where she could sleep comfortably.
What he was seeking was her real face, WHICH DID NOT EXIST, for a face is the expression of a soul, and she had no soul. Had she ever loved him? that is what he would have liked to ascertain, if nothing more. Had she smiled on Rampal? Perhaps—God! could it be possible? Who knows? Of what was she not capable to consummate her crime?—And yet he secretly admired her for the extraordinary perfidy he attributed to her. The Saracen blood, the blood of heathen pirates, did not flow in his veins for nothing.
Yes, indeed, if, in her hate-inspired work, she had had need of Rampal, with whom he had several times seen her talking, was it not possible that she had given herself to him in order to make him absolutely submissive to her will? What was he thinking of? Given herself to him? No, not that!—Not in its fullest meaning, at all events—but she might have let him steal a kiss—a long kiss, perhaps—from her lips. And the herdsman felt the keen point of the spear of jealousy pierce his heart.