The Sheik

She wondered numbly what would become of her. It did not seem to matter

much. Nothing mattered now that he did not want her any more. The old

life was far away, in another world. She could never go back to it. She

did not care. It was nothing to her. It was only here in the desert, in

Ahmed Ben Hassan's arms, that she had become alive, that she had

learned what life really meant, that she had waked both to happiness

and sorrow.

The future stretched out blank and menacing before her, but she turned

from it with a great sob of despair. It was on him that her thoughts

were fixed. How would life be endurable without him? Dully she wondered

why she did not hate him for having done to her what he had done, for

having made her what she was. But nothing that he could do could kill

the love now that he had inspired. And she would never regret. She

would always have the memory of the fleeting happiness that had been

hers--in after years that memory would be all that she would have to

live for. Even in her heart she did not reproach him, there was no

bitterness in her misery. She had always known that it would come,

though she had fenced with it, shutting it out of her mind resolutely.

He had never led her to expect anything else. There was no link to

bring them closer together, no bond between them. If she could have had

the promise of a child. Alone though she was the sensitive colour

flamed into her cheeks, and she hid her face in the pillows with a

quivering sob.

A child that would be his and hers, a child--a boy with

the same passionate dark eyes, the same crisp brown hair, the same

graceful body, who would grow up as tall and strong, as brave and

fearless as his father. Surely he must love her then. Surely the memory

of his own mother's tragic history would make him merciful to the

mother of his son. But she had no hope of that mercy. She lay shaking

with passionate yearning and the storm of bitter tears that swept over

her, hungry for the clasp of his arms, faint with longing. The pent-up

misery of weeks that she had crushed down surged over. There was nobody

to hear the agonising sobs that shook her from head to foot. She could

relax the control that she had put upon herself and which had seemed to

be slowly turning her to stone. She could give way to the emotion that,

suppressed, had welled up choking in her throat and gripped her

forehead like red-hot bands eating into her brain. Tears were not easy

to her. She had not wept since that first night when, with the fear of

worse than death, she had grovelled at his feet, moaning for mercy. She

had not wept during the terrible hours she was in the power of Ibraheim

Omair, nor during the days that Raoul de Saint Hubert had fought for

his friend's life. But to-night the tears that all her life she had

despised would not be denied. Tortured with conflicting emotions,

unsatisfied love, fear and uncertainty, utterly unnerved, she gave

herself up at last to the feelings she could no longer restrain. Prone

on the wide bed, her face buried in the pillows, her hands clutching

convulsively at the silken coverings, she wept until she had no more

tears, until the anguished, sobs died away into silence and she lay

quiet, exhausted.