will be
no moon; I was going, but why should you ask?" She bent forward
quickly, eagerly, some faint suspicion stirring in her.

"If I do this for you--if I save you--if I show myself to the
Sheik, then you must let me go to the palm-grove to-night."

Doolga fell back from her, surprise and terror and horror mingling
in her face. She clasped her small, soft hands together and wrung
them.

"Oh, Silka! you know, if he sees you, he will not look at me again;
he will not care."

Silka smiled a slow, painful smile.

"Do you not see?" she said in a whisper. "I shall go as you. Who
will know it is not you? Not Melun. He will be expecting you! he
has never seen me. I will not betray myself nor you, but this is my
condition. To-morrow I go in your stead to the Sheik; to-night, I
go in your stead to Melun."

Doolga stared at her, barely comprehending.

"But why--why?" she stammered in return.

"I go to the Sheik in your stead because I love you, and to Melun
in your stead because I love him," replied Silka firmly.

There was a smile in her eyes, but her lips were pale, compressed,
and sad. Doolga gazed at her in silence, both hands clasped tightly
now over her swelling breast. Astonishment, gratitude, mistrust,
and jealousy were all struggling together within it for mastery.

"You love Melun too?" she said at last. "Then why do you not take
him? One glance from you and he is yours."

"He was yours first," answered Silka miserably. "I cannot take him
from you."

"And you will marry the Sheik to save me?"

"Yes," replied Silka.

Then Doolga fell on her knees and thanked Silka and kissed her, and
Doolga's kisses were very sweet, and while those lips pressed hers
Silka forgot everything else in the world. At last Doolga said in a
sudden recrudescence of jealousy:

"In the grove to-night you will not--" and the rest was whispered.

"No," answered Silka; "I am the bride of the Sheik. You need fear
nothing. But I must see Melun; all my life long I shall feed on
your happiness. There will be nothing else for me. I shall live on
it. To do this I must have a vision of it before I go, and it will
stay by me for ever."

That afternoon the tent was gay with unrolled silks and scarlet
rugs, and coffee stood out in little porcelain cups upon the floor,
for the Sheik Ilbrahim had come to the final parley for his bride.
He sat before the coffee-cups on a black goat-skin, the pipe of
honour placed beside him. A grave, quie