l aspiration which was essential in his nature, through which
she had won him as her husband, but which now could only irritate and
confuse her, and stand in the way of her desires, keeping the path
against them.

"Yes," he said, drawing in his breath. "We are here to-night by the
Nile, and we hear the boatmen singing."

The distant singers had been silent for some minutes; now their voices
were heard again, and sounded nearer to the garden, as if they were on
some vessel that was drifting down the river under the brilliant stars.
So much nearer was the music that Mrs. Armine could hear a word cried
out by a solo voice, "Al-lah! Al-lah! Al-lah!" The voice was accompanied
by a deep and monotonous murmur. The singer was beating a _daraboukkeh_
held loosely between his knees. The chorus of nasal voices joined in
with the rough and artless vehemence which had in it something that was
sad, and something that, though pitiless, seemed at moments to thrill
with yearning, like the cruelty of the world, which is mingled with the
eternal longing for the healing of its wounds.

"We hear the boatmen singing," he repeated, "about Allah, and always
Allah, Allah, the God of the Nile, and of us two on the Nile."

"Sh--sh! There's that dog again! I do wish--"

She had begun to speak with an abrupt and almost fierce nervous
irritation, but she recovered herself immediately.

"Couldn't the gardener keep him out?" she said, quietly.

"Perhaps he belongs to the gardener. I'll go and see. I won't be a
minute."

He sprang up and followed the dog, which crept away into the garden,
looking around with its desolate, yellow eyes to see if danger were near
it.

Allah--Allah--Allah in the night!

Mrs. Armine did not know that this song of the boatmen of Nubia was
presently, in later days she did not dream of, to become almost an
integral part of her existence on the Nile; but although she did not
know this, she listened to it with an attention that was strained and
almost painful.

"Al-lah--Al-lah--"

"And probably there is no God," she thought. "How can there be? I am
sure there is none."

Abruptly Meyer Isaacson seemed to come before her in the darkness,
looking into her eyes as he had looked in his consulting-room when she
had put up her veil and turned her face towards the light. She shut her
eyes. Why should she think about him now? Why should she call him up
before her?

She heard a slight rustle near her, and she started an