Then, hearing the soldiers coming, he turned away; abruptly and disappeared into the bedroom tent.
Trevignac came up, and in a few minutes Androvsky reappeared. The two men gazed at each other for an instant. Then Domini introduced them, and they all sat down to dinner. Conversation was uneasy. Androvsky was evidently ill at ease; Trevignac was distrait at moments, strangely watchful of his host at other moments. Dinner over, Domini left the two men together to smoke, and went out on to the sand. She met an Arab carrying coffee and a liqueur to the tent.
"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching the bottle.
He told her it was an African liqueur.
"Take it in," she said.
And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs were making in honour of the soldiers.
When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it, standing up, with a quantity of fragments of glass lying at his feet. Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of glass were all that remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.
At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and rode away into the desert.
V.--I Have Insulted God
From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.