“That perhaps you will not come back, that perhaps the desert will keep you.”

“And my garden?”

She looked out across the tiny sand-path and the running rill of water to the great trees stirred by the cool breeze of dawn.

“It would miss you.”

After a moment, during which his bright eyes followed hers, he said:

“Do you know, I have a great belief in the intuitions of good women?”

“Yes?”

“An almost fanatical belief. Will you answer me a question at once, without consideration, without any time for thought?”

“If you ask me to.”

“I do ask you.”