His Hour

"Go on, my beauty," he said. "I like you to be so. It shows you are

alive."

As they approached the hotel, Tamara began to hope no one would see

them. No one who could tell Millicent that she had a companion. She

bent down and said rather primly to the young man who was again at her

side: "I am quite safe now, thank you. I need not trouble you any further.

Good-bye! and I am so obliged to you for showing me a new way home."

He looked up at her, and his whole face was lit with a whimsical smile.

"Yes, at the gate," he said. "Don't be nervous. I will go at the gate."

Tamara did not speak, and presently they came to the turning into the

hotel. Then he stopped.

"I suppose we shall meet again some day," he said. "They have a proverb

here, 'Meet before dawn--part not till dawn.' They see into the future

in a few drops of water in any hollow thing. Well, good-night"--and

before she could answer he was off beyond the hotel up the road and

then turning to the right on a sand-path, galloped out of sight into

what must be the vast desert.

Where on earth could he be going to?--possibly the devil--if one knew.