observed until the psychological moment arrived to break it, and that
moment would occur some time on Christmas Eve in the moonlit solitudes
of Khanmulla.

Later she reflected that perhaps it was as well to go and get it over.
She could not deny him his opportunity, and it would not take long--she
was sure it would not take long to convince him that they were better
as they were.

Had he been younger, less wedded to his work, less the slave of his
ambition, things might have been different. Had she never been married
to Ralph Dacre, never known the bondage of those few strange weeks, she
might have been more ready to join her life to his.

But Fate had intervened between them, and their paths now lay apart. He
realized it as well as she did. He would not press her. Their eyes were
open, and if the oasis in the desert had seemed desirable to either for
a space, yet each knew that it was no abiding-place.

Their appointed ways lay in the waste beyond, diverging ever more and
more, till presently even the greenness of that oasis in which they had
met together would be no more to either than a half-forgotten dream.




CHAPTER X

THE SURRENDER