At night they sat out in the moonlight, white as day, and the radiance over the sands was like the snow-flowers. Wrapped in their warm coverings, Julia and Thérèse de la Maine lay on the rugs before the door of their tent, and above their heads shone the stars so low that it seemed as though their hands could snatch them from the sky. At a little distance their servants sat around the dying fire, and there came to them the plaintive song of Azrael, as he led their singing: "And who can give again the love of yesterday? Can a whirlwind replace the sand after it is scattered? What can heal the heart that Allah has smited? Can the mirage form again when there are no eyes to see?" "I was married," said Madame de la Maine, "when I was sixteen." Julia drew a little nearer and smiled to herself in the shadow. This would be a real love story. "I had just come out of the convent. We lived in an old château, older than the history of your country, _ma chère_, and I had no _dot_. Robert de Tremont and I used to play together in the _allées_ of the park, on the terrace. When his mother brought him over, when she called on my grandmother, he teased me horribly because the weeds grew between the stones of our terrace. He was very rude. "Throughout our childhood, until I was sixteen, we teased each other and fought and quarreled." "This is not a love-affair, Thérèse," said Miss Redmond. "There are all kinds, _ma chère_, as there are all temperaments," said Madame de la Maine. "At Assumption--that is our great feast, Julia--the Feast of Mary--it comes in August--at Assumption, Monsieur de la Maine came to talk with my grandmother. He was forty years old, and bald--Bob and I made fun of his few hairs, like the children in the Holy Bible." Julia put out her hand and took the hand of Madame de la Maine gently. She was getting so far from a love-affair. "I married Monsieur de la Maine in six weeks," said Thérèse. "Oh," breathed Miss Redmond, "horrible!" Madame de la Maine pressed Julia's hand. "When it was decided between my grandmother and the comte, I escaped at night, after they thought I had gone to bed, and I went down to the lower terrace where the weeds grew in plenty, and told Robert. Somehow, I did not expect him to make fun, although we always joked about everything until this night. It was after nine o'clock." The comtesse swept one hand toward the desert. "A moon like this--only not like this--_ma chère_. There was never but that moon to me for many years. "I thought at first that Bob would kill me,--he grew so white and terrible. He seemed suddenly to have aged ten years. I will never forget his cry as it rang out in the night. 'You will marry that old man when we love each other?' I had never known it until then. "We were only children, but he grew suddenly old. I knew it then," said Madame de la Maine intensely, "I knew it then."