A stronger gust of the night wind followed them. Androvsky took his arms slowly from Domini and turned to let down the flap of the tent. While he was doing this she stood quite still. The flame of the lamp flickered, throwing its light now here, now there, uneasily. She saw the crucifix lit up for an instant and the white bed beneath it. The wind stirred her dark hair and was cold about her neck. But the warmth there met and defied it. In that brief moment, while Androvsky was fastening the tent, she seemed to live through centuries of intense and complicated emotion. When the light flickered over the crucifix she felt as if she could spend her life in passionate adoration at its foot; but when she did not see it, and the wind, coming in from the desert through the tent door, where she heard the movement of Androvsky, stirred in her hair, she felt reckless, wayward, savage--and something more. A cry rose in her that was like the cry of a stranger, who yet was of her and in her, and from whom she would not part. Again the lamp flame flickered upon the crucifix. Quickly, while she saw the crucifix plainly, she went forward to the bed and fell on her knees by it, bending down her face upon its whiteness. When Androvsky had fastened the tent door he turned round and saw her kneeling. He stood quite still as if petrified, staring at her. Then, as the flame, now sheltered from the wind, burned steadily, he saw the crucifix. He started as if someone had struck him, hesitated, then, with a look of fierce and concentrated resolution on his face, went swiftly to the crucifix and pulled it from the canvas roughly. He held it in his hand for an instant, then moved to the tent door and stooped to unfasten the cords that held it to the pegs, evidently with the intention of throwing the crucifix out into the night. But he did not unfasten the cords. Something--some sudden change of feeling, some secret and powerful reluctance--checked him. He thrust the crucifix into his pocket. Then, returning to where Domini was kneeling, he put his arms round her and drew her to her feet. She did not resist him. Still holding her in his arms he blew out the lamp. CHAPTER XIX The Arabs have a saying, “In the desert one forgets everything, one remembers nothing any more.”