some days it was doubtful whether she would recover, and her condition was aggravated by the fact that she was shortly to become a mother. She did regain her senses after a time, however, but nothing could make her say anything about herself, and questions reduced her to terrible fits of hysterical crying which were prejudicial in her state of health. She seemed calmest when she was left quite alone, but even then she started at the slightest sound, and the headman's wife reported that she would lie for hours on her bed crying quietly to herself. She was quite young--seemingly not more than nineteen or twenty. From her accents my father decided that she was Spanish, but she would admit nothing, not even her nationality. In due course of time the child was born, a boy." Saint Hubert paused a moment and nodded towards the Sheik. "Even after the child's birth she refused to give any account of herself. In that she was as firm as a rock; in everything else she was the frailest, gentlest little creature imaginable. She was very small and slender, with quantities of soft dark hair and beautiful great dark eyes that looked like a frightened fawn's. I have heard my father describe her many times, and I have seen the water-colour sketch he made of her--he was quite an amateur. Ahmed has it locked away somewhere. She nearly died when the baby was born, and she never recovered her strength. She made no complaint and never spoke of herself, and seemed quite content as long as the child was with her. She was a child herself in a great number of ways. It never seemed to occur to her that there was anything odd in her continued residence in the Sheik's camp. She had a tent and servants of her own, and the headman's wife was devoted to her. So were the rest of the camp for that matter. There was an element of the mysterious in her advent that had taken hold of the superstitious Arabs, and the baby was looked upon as something more than human and was adored by all the tribe. The Sheik himself, who had never looked twice at a woman before in his life, became passionately attached to her. My father says that he has never seen a man so madly in love as Ahmed Ben Hassan was with the strange white girl who had come so oddly into his life. He repeatedly implored her to marry him, and even my father, who has a horror of mixed marriages, was impelled to admit that any woman might have been happy with Ahmed Ben Hassan. She would not consent, though she would give no reason for her refusal, and the mystery that surrounded her remained as insolvable during the two years that she lived after the baby's birth as it had been on the day of her arrival. And her refusal made no difference with the Sheik. His devotion was wonderful. When she died my father was again visiting the camp. She knew that she was dying, and a few days before the end she told them her pitiful little history. She was the only daughter of one