ing of which true episode has taken me from the evening when
the sun had just slipped behind the edge of sand.

Jill sat motionless in a corner of her beautiful room, with a pucker of
dissatisfaction on her forehead.

Jill, the girl who only a few moons back had taken the reins of her
life into her own hands, and had tangled them into a knot which her
henna-tipped fingers seemed unable to unravel. English books,
magazines, papers lay on tables, the latest music was stacked on a
grand piano, great flowering plants filling the air with heavy scent
stood in every corner, the pearls around her neck were worth a king's
ransom, the sweetmeats on a filigree stand looked like uncut jewels; in
fact everything a woman could want was there, and yet not enough to
erase the tiny pucker.

Months ago she had played for her freedom and lost.

This exquisite building had been built for her, horses were hers, and
camels; jewels were literally flung at her feet.

She clapped her hands and soft-footed natives ran to do her bidding,
flowers and fruit came daily from the oasis, sweetmeats and books each
day from the nearest city. Her smallest whim, even to the mere passing
of a shadow of a wish, was fulfilled, and yet------

A few months ago her mocking words had swung to the silken curtains of
her chamber, and since then she had been alone.

Verily, there were no restrictions and no barriers, but the yellow sand
stretched away to the East and away to the West, and obedience in the
oasis was bred from love and her twin sister fear.

True, the girl had but to bid the Arab to her presence and the curtain
would swing back.

But upon the threshold he would stand, or upon the floor he would seat
himself, motionless, with a face as expressionless as stone.

By no movement, word or sign, could she find out if she was any more to
him than the wooden beads which ceaselessly passed between his fingers.

Nothing showed her if he remembered the first night, when for a moment
the man had broken through the inherited reserve of centuries. Had it
been merely the East clamouring for the out-of-reach, longed-for West?
Perhaps! Just a passing moment, as quickly forgotten, and against
which forgetfulness the woman in her rebelled.

It had even come to her to lie awake during the night following the
days in which the man had been away from his beloved oasis. The swift
rush of naked feet, taking her as swiftly to the roof, where peeping
betwee