Her horse drooped its head till its nose nearly touched the earth, and shook itself in a long shiver. She shivered too, as if constrained to echo an animal’s distress. “Things have died here,” Androvsky said, speaking at last in a low voice and pointing with his long-lashed whip towards the camels’ skeletons. “Come, Domini, the horses are tired.” He cast another glance at the tower, and they dismounted by their tent, which was pitched at the very edge of the steep slope that sank down to the beast-like shapes of the near dunes. An hour later Domini said to Androvsky: “You won’t go after gazelle this evening surely?” They had been having coffee in the tent and had just finished. Androvsky got up from his chair and went to the tent door. The grey of the sky was pierced by a gleaming shaft from the sun. “Do you mind if I go?” he said, turning towards her after a glance to the desert. “No, but aren’t you tired?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t ride, and now I can ride. I couldn’t shoot, and I’m just beginning--” “Go,” she said quickly. “Besides, we want gazelle for dinner, Batouch says, though I don’t suppose we should starve without it.” She came to the tent door and stood beside him, and he put his arm around her. “If I were alone here, Boris,” she said, leaning against his shoulder, “I believe I should feel horribly sad to-day.” “Shall I stay?” He pressed her against him. “No. I shall know you are coming back. Oh, how extraordinary it is to think we lived so many years without knowing of each other’s existence, that we lived alone. Were you ever happy?” He hesitated before he replied. “I sometimes thought I was.” “But do you think now you ever really were?” “I don’t know--perhaps in a lonely sort of way.” “You can never be happy in that way now?” He said nothing, but, after a moment, he kissed her long and hard, and as if he wanted to draw her being into his through the door of his lips. “Good-bye,” he said, releasing her. “I shall be back directly after sundown.” “Yes. Don’t wait for the dark down there. If you were lost in the dunes!” She pointed to the distant sand hills rising and falling monotonously to the horizon. “If you are not back in good time,” she said, “I shall stand by the tower and wave a brand from the fire.” “Why by the tower?” “The ground is highest by the tower.”