But with her love was the fear of him that she had learned during the first

hours of her captivity, the physical fear that she had never lost, even

during the happy weeks that had preceded the coming of Saint Hubert,

and the greater fear that was with her always, and that at times drove

her, with wide-stricken eyes, wildly to pace the tent as if to escape

the shadow that hung over her--the fear of the time when he should tire

of her. The thought racked her, and now, as always, she tried to put it

from her, but it continued, persistently haunting her like a grim

spectre. Always the same thought tortured her--he had not taken her for

love. No higher motive than a passing fancy had stirred him. He had

Advertisement..

seen her, had wished for her and had taken her, and once in his power

it had amused him to break her to his hand. She realised all that. And

he had been honest, he had never pretended to love her. Often when the

humour took him he could be gentle, as in those last few weeks, but

gentleness was not love, and she had never seen the light that she

longed for kindle in his eyes. His caresses had been passionate or

careless with his mood. She did not know that he loved her. She had not

been with him during the long hours of his delirium and she had not

heard what Raoul de Saint Hubert had heard. And since his recovery his

attitude of aloofness had augmented her fear. There seemed only one

construction to put on his silence, and his studied and obvious

avoidance of her.

The passing fancy had passed. It was as if the

fleeting passion he had had for her had been drained from him with the

blood that flowed from the terrible wound he had received. He was tired

of her and seeking for a means to disembarrass himself of her. Vaguely

she felt that she had known this for weeks, but to-night was the first

time that she had had courage to be frank with herself. It must be so.

Everything pointed to it; the curious expression she had seen in his

eyes and his constant heavy frown all confirmed it. She flung her arm

across her eyes with a little moan. He was tired of her and the bottom

had fallen out of her world. The instinct to fight for his love that

had been so strong in her the day that Ibraheim Omair had captured her

had died with the death of all her hopes. Her spirit was broken. She

knew that her will was helpless against his, and with a fatalism that

she had learned in the desert she accepted the inevitable with a

crushed feeling of hopelessness.




Most Popular