The Sheik

She flung out her hands appealingly. "I want to stay, Ahmed! I love

you!" she panted, desperate--for she knew his obstinate determination,

and she saw her chance of happiness slipping away.

He did not move or look at her, and his brows drew together in the

dreaded heavy frown. "You don't know what you are saying. You don't

know what it would mean," he replied in a voice from which he had

forced all expression. "If you married me you would have to live always

here in the desert. I cannot leave my people, and I am--too much of an

Arab to let you go alone. It would be no life for you. You think you

love me now, though God knows how you can after what I have done to

you, but a time would come when you would find that your love for me

did not compensate for your life here. And marriage with me is

unthinkable. You know what I am and what I have been. You know that I

am not fit to live with, not fit to be near any decent woman. You know

what sort of a damnable life I have led; the memory of it would always

come between us--you would never forget, you would never trust me. And

if you could, of your charity, both forgive and forget, you know that I

am not easy to live with. You know my devilish temper--it has not

spared you in the past, it might not spare you in the future. Do you

think that I could bear to see you year after year growing to hate me

more? You think that I am cruel now, but I am thinking what is best for

you afterwards. Some day you will think of me a little kindly because I

had the strength to let you go. You are so young, your life is only just

beginning. You are strong enough to put the memory of these last months

out of your mind--to forget the past and live only for the future. No

one need ever know. There can be no fear for your--reputation. Things

are forgotten in the silence of the desert. Mustafa Ali is many hundreds

of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men

need not be considered, they speak or are silent as I wish. There is

only Raoul, and there is no question of him. He has not spared me his

opinion. You must go back to your own country, to your own people, to

your own life, in which I have no place or part, and soon all this will

seem only like an ugly dream."