So saying, and before Shems-ud-dìn could touch his hand or frame an answer, he was gone again. In his place came Mâs, who ushered his master out through the sunny court and up the stairs to the door of the sick room. The fragrance of that room, its cool, sweet air, refreshed Shems-ud-dìn. “Praise be to Allah!” cried Fatmeh, in response to his formal query. In a posture of triumph, she waved him on toward the bed. “See her smile to welcome her dear father. Is she not almost recovered? Never again did I think to behold her so well, so happy! O light of my eyes! O my pretty one! O life! O happy day!” As he sat upon a pile of cushions arranged for him by Fatmeh beside the bed, the reasonable speech and ready smile of the beloved came near to persuade Shems-ud-dìn that the physician had lied to him. All day long he sat there, happier than ever since his coming to El Cûds; and that unowned hope which keeps the door of enjoyment locked out fears. Once he even echoed Fatmeh when she praised Allah for the girl’s perfect recovery. His intelligence was relaxed, off guard, a plaything for mocking devils, it seemed to him afterwards. At length, when it wore toward evening, Fatmeh went out for a while, leaving Shems-ud-dìn alone at the bedside. He held the hand of his daughter, a bird’s claw for thinness. No word passed till Alia said earnestly: “O my father!” Shems-ud-dìn quickened instantly out of his half-abstraction. His brain throbbing with intensity of interest, he answered: “What is there, O my daughter?” “There is this, my father: I fear much to die. I fear the great darkness and the loneliness. Thou knowest how I always have feared to be alone in darkness, how I feel a jinni clutch me, and I scream. O my dearest, O Allah, what shall I do in a darkness which has no boundary, in a silence whence no scream is ever heard?” She clasped her father’s arm and clung to it, trembling. Shems-ud-dìn, leaning over her, heartrent by the horror in her dilated eyes, ransacked his brain for words to calm her. “Take comfort, O beloved!” he whispered. “Doubtless there is a place for thee in the garden of Allah.” “Yes, O my father. Think not I forget all instruction. But that paradise is a shadowy place. It seems to me, as I lie here and think, that a doubt encircles it. It is but a shadow of that sure and glorious one reserved for men. Hear now my prayer, O my father; it is for that I called to thee. When thou, judged righteous, art with the blessed, deign to remember me, thy daughter, and ask of Allah the favor of my presence with thee. The dark-eyed maids will not hate me, for I am thy daughter; and it is allowed thee to ask for a woman dear to thee on the earth.” “Thou art no woman of mine, in that sense——”