"Thérèse!" exclaimed the American girl. "It is only fourteen days!" Madame de la Maine laughed. There was a break in her voice. "Only fourteen days," she repeated, "and any one of those days may mean death!" She threw back her head, touched her stallion, and flew away like light, and it was Julia who first drew rein. "Thérèse! Thérèse! We can not go any farther!" "Lady!" said Azrael. He drew his big black horse up beside them. "We must go back to the tents." Madame de la Maine pointed with her whip toward the horizon. "It is cruel! It ever recedes!" * * * * * * * "Tell me, Julia, of Monsieur de Sabron," asked Madame de la Maine abruptly. "There is nothing to tell, Thérèse." "You don't trust me?" "Do you think that, really?" In the tent where Azrael served them their meal, under the ceiling of Turkish red with its Arabic characters in clear white, Julia and Madame de la Maine sat while their coffee was served them by a Syrian servant. "A girl does not come into the Sahara and watch like a sentinel, does not suffer as you have suffered, _ma chère_, without there being something to tell." "It is true," said Miss Redmond, "and would you be with me, Thérèse, if I did not trust you? And what do you want me to tell?" she added naively. The comtesse laughed. "_Vous êtes charmante_, Julia!" "I met Monsieur de Sabron," said Julia slowly, "not many months ago in Palestine. I saw him several times, and then he went away." "And then?" urged Madame de la Maine eagerly. "He left his little dog, Pitchouné, with me, and Pitchouné ran after his master, to Marseilles, flinging himself into the water, and was rescued by the sailors. I wrote about it to Monsieur de Sabron, and he answered me from the desert, the night before he went into battle." "And that's all?" urged Madame de la Maine. "That's all," said Miss Redmond. She drank her coffee. "You tell a love story very badly, _ma chère_." "Is it a love story?" "Have you come to Africa for charity? _Voyons!_" Julia was silent. A great reserve seemed to seize her heart, to stifle her as the poverty of her love story struck her. She sat turning her coffee-spoon between her fingers, her eyes downcast. She had very little to tell. She might never have any more to tell. Yet this was her love story. But the presence of Sabron was so real, and she saw his eyes clearly looking upon her as she had seen them often; heard the sound of his voice that meant but one thing--and the words of his letter came back to her. She remembered her letter to him, rescued from the field where he had fallen. She raised her eyes to the Comtesse de la Maine, and there was an appeal in them. The Frenchwoman leaned over and kissed Julia. She asked nothing more. She had not learned her lessons in discretion to no purpose.