rough it all!" she told
herself, with a sob of joy in her throat. "It had to come right." And
she thought that she could hear a voice saying: "It is love that has
brought him. He loves you, as much as you love him."

To her mind, especially in this mood, it was not extraordinary that each
should love the other after so short an acquaintance. She was even ready
to believe of herself that, unconsciously, she had fallen in love with
Stephen the first time she met him on the Channel boat. He had
interested her. She had remembered his face, and had been sorry to think
that she would never see it again. On the ship, going out from
Marseilles, she had been so glad when he came on deck that her heart had
begun to beat quickly. She had scolded herself at the time, for being
silly, and school-girlishly romantic; but now she realized that her soul
had known its mate. It could scarcely be real love, she fancied, that
was not born in the first moment, when spirit spoke to spirit. And her
love could not have drawn a man hundreds of miles across the desert, if
it had not met and clasped hands with his love for her.

"Oh, how happy I am!" she thought. "And the glory of it is, that it's
_not_ strange--only wonderful. The most wonderful thing that ever
happened or could happen."

Then she remembered the sand-divining, and how M'Barka had said that
"her wish was far from her, but that Allah would send a strong man,
young and dark, of another country than her own; a man whose brain, and
heart, and arm would be at her service, and in whom she might trust."
Victoria recalled these words, and did not try to bring back to her mind
what remained of the prophecy.

Almost, she had been foolish enough to be superstitious, and afraid of
Maieddine's influence upon her life, since that night; and of course she
had known that it was of Maieddine M'Barka had thought, whether she
sincerely believed in her own predictions or no. Now, it pleased
Victoria to feel that, not only had she been foolish, but stupid. She
might have been happy in her childish superstition, instead of unhappy,
because the description of the man applied to Stephen as well as to
Maieddine.

For the moment, she did not ask herself how Stephen Knight was going to
take her and Saidee away from Maieddine and Cassim, for she was so sure
he had not come across miles of desert in vain, that she took the rest
for granted in her first joy. She was certain that Saidee's troubles and
her