“Or what it leads to,” he said.
And again there was a sort of sternness in his voice, as if he were insisting on something, were bent on conquering some reluctance, or some voice contradicting.
“I know that you are right,” he added.
She did not speak, but—why she did not know—her thought went to the wooden crucifix fastened in the canvas of the tent close by, and for a moment she felt a faint creeping sadness in her. But he pressed her hand more closely, and she was conscious only of these two warmths—-of his hand above her hand and of the desert beneath it. Her whole life seemed set in a glory of fire, in a heat that was life-giving, that dominated her and evoked at the same time all of power that was in her, causing her dormant fires, physical and spiritual, to blaze up as if they were sheltered and fanned. The thought of the crucifix faded. It was as if the fire destroyed it and it became ashes—then nothing. She fixed her eyes on the distant fire of the Arabs, which was beginning to die down slowly as the night grew deeper.
“I have doubted many things,” he said. “I’ve been afraid.”
“You!” she said.
“Yes. You know it.”
“How can I? Haven’t I forgotten everything—since that day in the garden?”
He drew up her hand and put it against his heart.
“I’m jealous of the desert even,” he whispered. “I won’t let you touch it any more tonight.”