at to do with it?"

"Have you learned its lesson?"

"What lesson?"

"The lesson of resignation, of obedience to the thing that must be."

Artois looked towards the last speaker and saw that he was an Oriental,
and that he was very old. His companion was a young Frenchman.

"What do those do who have not learned?" continued the Oriental. "They
seek, do they not? They rebel, they fight, they try to avoid things,
they try to bring things about. They lift up their hands to disperse the
grains of the sand-storm. They lift up their voices to be heard by the
wind from the South. They stretch forth their hands to gather the mirage
into their bosom. They follow the drum that is beaten among the dunes.
They are afraid of life because they know it has two kinds of gifts, and
one they snatch at, and one they would refuse. And they are afraid
still more of the door that all must enter, Sultan and Nomad--he who has
washed himself and made the threefold pilgrimage, and he who is a leper
and is eaten by flies. So it is. And nevertheless all that is to come
must come, and all that is to go must go at the time appointed; just as
the cloud falls and lifts at the time appointed, and the wind blows and
fails, and Ramadan is here and is over."

As he ceased from speaking he got up from his chair, and, followed by
the young Frenchman, he passed in front of Artois, went down to the
waterside, stepped into a boat, and was rowed away into the gathering
shadows of night.

Artois sat very still for a time. Then he, too, got into a boat and was
rowed away across the calm water to the island.

He found Hermione sitting alone, without a lamp, on the terrace,
meditating, perhaps, beneath the stars. When she saw him she got up
quickly, and a strained look of excitement came into her face.

"You have come!"

"Yes. You--are you surprised? Did you wish to be alone?"

"No. Will you have some coffee?"

He shook his head.

"I dined at the Giuseppone. I had it there."

He glanced round.

"Are you looking for Vere? She is out on the cliff, I suppose. Shall we
go to her?"

He was struck by her nervous uneasiness. And he thought of the words of
the old Oriental, which had made upon him a profound impression, perhaps
because they had seemed spoken, not to the young Frenchman, but in
answer to unuttered thoughts of his own.

"Let us sit here for a minute," he said.

Hermione sat down again in silence. They talked for a little while
about tr