Ordinarily the Sheik dispensed with him at
night, but since his wound, the valet, as soon as he had himself
recovered, had always been in attendance. Some nights he lingered
talking, and others the Sheik dismissed him in a few minutes with only
a curt word or two, and then there would be silence, and Diana would
bury her face in her pillow and writhe in her desperate loneliness,
sick with longing for the strong arms she had once dreaded and the
kisses she had once loathed. He had slept in the outer room since his
illness, and tossing feverishly on the soft cushions of the big empty
bed in which she lay alone Diana had suffered the greatest humiliation
she had yet experienced. He had never loved her, but now he did not
even want her. She was useless to him. She was less than nothing to
him. He had no need of her. She would lie awake listening wearily to
the tiny chimes of the little clock with the bitter sense of her
needlessness crushing her. She was humbled to the very dust by his
indifference. The hours of loneliness in the room that was redolent
with associations of him were filled with memories that tortured her.
In her fitful sleep her dreams were agonies from which she awakened
with shaking limbs and shuddering breath, and waking, her hand would
stretch out groping to him till remembrance came with cruel vividness.
In the daytime, too, she had been much alone, for as soon as the Sheik
was strong enough to sit in the saddle the two men had ridden far
afield every day, visiting the outlying camps and drawing into Ahmed
Ben Hassan's own hands again the affairs that had had to be relegated
to the headmen.
At last Raoul had announced that his visit could be protracted no
longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. He was going up
to Oran and from there to Tangier by coasting steamer, collecting at
Tangier a caravan for his expedition through Morocco. His decision once
made he had speeded every means of getting away with a despatch that
had almost suggested flight.
To Diana his going meant the hastening of a crisis that could not be
put off much longer. The situation was becoming impossible. She had
said good-bye to him the night before. She had never guessed the love
she had inspired in him, and she wondered at the sadness in his eyes
and his unaccustomed lack of words. He had wanted to say so much and he
had said so little. She must never guess and Ahmed must never guess, so
he played the game to the end. Only that night after she had left them
the voices sounded in the adjoining room for a very short time. And
this morning he and Ahmed Ben Hassan had ridden away at daybreak. She
had not been asleep; she had heard them go, and almost she wished Raoul
back, for with his presence the vague fear that assailed her seemed
further away. The camp had seemed very lonely and the day very long.