this fair and regal beauty touch
her, even in the midst of her fury, with a certain reverent awe, with a
certain dim sense of something her own life had missed. She had
trodden the ivory in pieces with all the violence of childish, savage,
uncalculating hate, and she had been chidden, as by a rebuking voice, by
the wreck which her action had made at her feet; so could she now, had
it been possible, have ruined and annihilated the loveliness that filled
his heart and his soul; but so would she also, the moment her instinct
to avenge herself had been sated, have felt the remorse and the shame
of having struck down a delicate and gracious thing that even in its
destruction had a glory that was above her.

Even her very hate attracted her to the sight, to the study, to the
presence of this woman, who was as dissimilar to all of womanhood that
had ever crossed her path, in camp and barrack, as the pure, white
gleaming lily of the hothouse is unlike the wind-tossed, sand-stained,
yellow leaf down-trodden in the mud. An irresistible fascination drew
her toward the self-same pain which had so wounded her a few hours
before--an impulse more intense than curiosity, and more vital than
caprice, urged her to the vicinity of the only human being who had ever
awakened in her the pang of humiliation, the throbs of envy.

And she went to that vicinity, now that the daylight had just changed
to evening, and the ruddy torch-glare was glowing everywhere from great
pine boughs thrust in the ground, with their resinous branches steeped
in oil and flaring alight. There was not a man that night in camp who
would have dared oppose the steps of the young heroine of the Cross
wherever they might choose, in their fantastic flight, to wander.
The sentinels passing up and down the great space before the marquees
challenged her, indeed, but she was quick to give the answering
password, and they let her go by them, their eyes turning after the
little picturesque form that every soldier of the Corps of Africa loved
almost like the flag beneath which he fought. Once in the magic circle,
she paused a while; the desire that urged her on, and the hate that
impelled her backward, keeping her rooted there in the dusky shadow
which the flapping standards threw.

To creep covertly into her rival's presence, to hide herself like a spy
to see what she wished, to show fear, or hesitation, or deference,
were not in the least what she contemplated. What she int