The long hours of that day passed in a sort of dark confusion. At last the sun set, and the moon rose over the desert, the golden tropical moon in the purple of the Eastern sky, and lit up the wilderness of sand as with a softer sun. It grew late and Helena rose to go to her room. As she did so she almost fell from dizziness, and Ishmael helped her to the door of the women’s quarters. She had seen his lustrous eyes upon her with the expression that had made her tremble on the night of the betrothal, but again, in the same scarcely audible voice, he said— "God give you a good morning!" and putting, for the first time, his lips to her hand he went away. When she was alone a long hour passed in silence. The bedroom was in a state of perfect calm, yet a frightful tumult was going on in her brain. Could it be possible that he who was coming was—— No! The wild irony of that thought was too terrible. That at the very moment when she thought she was avenging Gordon for the injury he had suffered at the hands of Ishmael—that at that moment, by some sinister eccentricity of destiny, he ... he, himself—— In the midst of her hideous pain a sweet and joyous sound fell upon her ear. It was the voice of the child, who had awakened for a moment from her peaceful sleep. "Will you not come into bed, Rani?" "Yes, yes, dear, presently," she answered, and at the next moment the child’s equal and tranquil breathing, so gentle, so calm, fell on her ear again. Innocence is the most formidable of all spectacles that can confront an uneasy conscience, and when at length Helena got into bed, and the child, in the blind mists of sleep, nestled up to her, she had to justify herself by thinking that in everything she had done, everything she had tried to do, she had been moved by incidents of the most irresistible provocation. "After all, _he killed my father_," she thought. But nevertheless she felt again, as she was dropping off to sleep, that she was falling, falling, falling over the edge of a yawning precipice. END OF VOL. I Printed by BALLANTYNE & Co. LIMITED Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London *HEINEMANN’S LIBRARY OF MODERN FICTION* "False balance is an abomination Just weight a delight." MR. HEINEMANN’S New Library of MODERN FICTION will meet, it is believed, the many objections recently raised against the present form and price of Novels.