The Sheik

Saint Hubert paused a moment and nodded towards the Sheik. "Even after

the child's birth she refused to give any account of herself. In that

she was as firm as a rock; in everything else she was the frailest,

gentlest little creature imaginable. She was very small and slender,

with quantities of soft dark hair and beautiful great dark eyes that

looked like a frightened fawn's. I have heard my father describe her

many times, and I have seen the water-colour sketch he made of her--he

was quite an amateur. Ahmed has it locked away somewhere. She nearly

died when the baby was born, and she never recovered her strength. She

made no complaint and never spoke of herself, and seemed quite content

as long as the child was with her. She was a child herself in a great

number of ways. It never seemed to occur to her that there was anything

odd in her continued residence in the Sheik's camp. She had a tent and

servants of her own, and the headman's wife was devoted to her. So were

the rest of the camp for that matter. There was an element of the

mysterious in her advent that had taken hold of the superstitious

Arabs, and the baby was looked upon as something more than human and

was adored by all the tribe. The Sheik himself, who had never looked

twice at a woman before in his life, became passionately attached to

her.

My father says that he has never seen a man so madly in love as

Ahmed Ben Hassan was with the strange white girl who had come so oddly

into his life. He repeatedly implored her to marry him, and even my

father, who has a horror of mixed marriages, was impelled to admit that

any woman might have been happy with Ahmed Ben Hassan. She would not

consent, though she would give no reason for her refusal, and the

mystery that surrounded her remained as insolvable during the two years

that she lived after the baby's birth as it had been on the day of her

arrival. And her refusal made no difference with the Sheik. His

devotion was wonderful. When she died my father was again visiting the

camp. She knew that she was dying, and a few days before the end she

told them her pitiful little history. She was the only daughter of one

of the oldest noble houses in Spain, as poor as they were noble, and

she had been married when she was seventeen to Lord Glencaryll, who had

seen her with her parents in Nice. She had been married without any

regard to her own wishes, and though she grew to love her husband she

was always afraid of him. He had a terrible temper that was very easily

roused, and, in those days, he also periodically drank a great deal

more than was good for him, and when under the influence of drink

behaved more like a devil than a man. She was very young and

gauche, failing often to do what was required of her from mere

nervousness. He was exigent and made no allowance for her youth and

inexperience, and her life was one long torture. And yet in spite of it

all she loved him. Even in speaking of it she insisted that the fault

was hers, that the trouble was due to her stupidity, glossing over his

brutality; in fact, it was not from her, but from inquiries that he

made after her death, that my father learned most of what her life had

been.