CHAPTER XXIII
TWO LOVE STORIES
If it had not been for her absorbing thought of Sabron, Julia would have reveled in the desert and the new experiences. As it was, its charm and magic and the fact that he traveled over it helped her to endure the interval.
In the deep impenetrable silence she seemed to hear her future speak to her. She believed that it would either be a wonderfully happy one, or a hopelessly withered life.
"Julia, I can not ride any farther!" exclaimed the comtesse.
She was an excellent horsewoman and had ridden all her life, but her riding of late had consisted of a canter in the Bois de Boulogne at noon, and it was sometimes hard to follow Julia's tireless gallops toward an ever-disappearing goal.
"Forgive me," said Miss Redmond, and brought her horse up to her friend's side.
It was the cool of the day, of the fourteenth day since Tremont had left Algiers and the seventh day of Julia's excursion. A fresh wind blew from the west, lifting their veils from their helmets and bringing the fragrance of the mimosa into whose scanty forest they had ridden. The sky paled toward sunset, and the evening star, second in glory only to the moon, hung over the west.
Although both women knew perfectly well the reason for this excursion and its importance, not one word had been spoken between them of Sabron and Tremont other than a natural interest and anxiety.
They might have been two hospital nurses awaiting their patients.