There the moon was on their faces, and from time to time there was a silvery rain of southern stars. They sat for a while in silence, she with a sense of shame, he with a momentary thrill of passion that came up from the place where he was no longer a prophet but a man. She felt that he was trying to look into her face with his lustrous black eyes, and she wished to turn away from him. This brought the hot colour of blood into her cheeks, and only made her the more beautiful. A sense of physical fear began to take possession of her, and a storm of thoughts and memories came in rapid succession. She could not express even to her own mind the intricacies of her emotions. This man was an Oriental, and she believed him to be capable of treachery and guilty of violence. Yet she was his wife, according to his own view, and what at this moment, when they were alone, was the worth of the pledge whereby she (for her own purposes) had consented to be his wife in name only, his betrothed! Her nervousness increased every moment. When he touched her arm she recoiled slightly and felt her skin creep. He seemed to be conscious of this, for he sat by her side a little longer without speaking. The silence of night was on the desert and along the moon-track across the river, as far as to the ruined dome of the Mahdi’s tomb, which seemed so threatening and so near. At length in a soft voice he said, "Come," and held out his hand to help her to rise. She rose, trembling all over with fright and a sort of physical humiliation—she who had always been so proud, so strong, so brave. He led her to the women’s side of the house, without speaking a word until they got there, and then, almost in a whisper, he said— "You sleep here with little Ayesha. May your night be happy and your morning good!" She looked up at him as he recommended her to God, and was amazed at the calm, luminous face that now met her own. At the next moment he was gone. It was an immense relief to find herself in her bedroom, where a little open lamp was burning, and there was no sound but the soft and measured breathing of the child, who was asleep in bed. At the first moment the sleeping child was like a great protector, but when she became calmer, and began to think of this, she felt the more ashamed. "What impossible, terrible thing has happened?" she thought, and then she asked herself again, "Am I really myself or some one else?" "Oh, what have I done?" she thought, and a sense of sin took possession of her, which was almost like that which a good woman feels when she has committed adultery. "It is terrible, but it is inevitable," she thought, and then she fought against the sentiment of shame which oppressed her, by telling herself that Ishmael was a crafty hypocrite, whose soft words were a sham, whose religion was a lie, whose wicked deeds deserved punishment at any price whatever.