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
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.