She put out her hand and took hold of her husband’s, and pressed it down on the sand.
“Do you remember that first night, Boris,” she said, “at Arba, when you took my hand in yours and laid it against the desert as against a heart?”
“Yes, Domini, I remember.”
“That night we were one, weren’t we?”
“Yes, Domini.”
“Were we”—she was almost whispering in the night—“were we truly one?”
“Why do you—truly one, you say?”
“Yes—one in soul? That is the great union, greater than the union of our bodies. Were we one in soul? Are we now?”
“Domini, why do you ask me such questions? Do you doubt my love?”
“No. But I do ask you. Won’t you answer me?”