after twenty years?"

"Yes," he said, "I am he."

Standing there in the sands, while the world was wrapped in sleep,
Androvsky told Domini the whole story of his life in the monastery, of
his innocent happiness there, and of the events which woke up within him
the mad longing to see life and the world, and to know the love of
woman. He told her of his secret departure by night from the monastery,
of his journey to the desert in search of complete and savage liberty.
He told her how he had fought against his growing love for her, how he
had tried to leave her; how, at the last moment in the garden by night,
his passion for her had conquered him and driven him to her feet. He
told her how the officer, Trevignac, had known him long ago in the
monastery, and had recognised him when the Arab brought in the liqueur
which he had made. He kept nothing from her.

"That last day in the garden," he said finally, "I thought I had
conquered myself, and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I
knew you loved me, I could fight no more. You have seen me, you have
lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't think, Domini, that
it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie
to God, that--that--I can't tell you--I can't tell you--you know."

He looked into her face, then turned to go away into the desert.

"I'll go! I'll go!" he muttered.

Then Domini spoke.

"Boris!" she said.

He stopped.

"Boris, now at last you can pray."

She went into the tent, and left him alone. He knew that in the tent she
was praying for him. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer, then,
with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out a wooden
cross, given to him by his mother when he entered the monastery. He bent
down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the
desert.

From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her.
Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious
woman. She put God above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love,
above Androvsky and his passionate love for her. She put the things of
eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the
child that was coming.

After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had
married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted
for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven.

And now, in the garden of