wishes, and he motioned the others to ride more slowly, while he and they
watched horsemen coming out from Assouan towards them.

David urged his camel on. Presently he could distinguish the features of
the woman riding towards him. It was Hylda. His presentiment, his
instinct had been right. His heart beat tumultuously, his hand trembled,
he grew suddenly weak; but he summoned up his will, and ruled himself to
something like composure. This, then, was his home-coming from the far
miseries and trials and battle-fields--to see her face before all others,
to hear her voice first. What miracle had brought this thing to pass,
this beautiful, bitter, forbidden thing? Forbidden! Whatever the cause
of her coming, she must not see what he felt for her. He must deal
fairly by her and by Eglington; he must be true to that real self which
had emerged from the fiery trial in the monastery. Bronzed as he was,
his face showed no paleness; but, as he drew near her, it grew pinched
and wan from the effort at self-control. He set his lips and rode on,
until he could see her eyes looking into his--eyes full of that which he
had never seen in any eyes in all the world.

What had been her feelings during that ride in the desert? She had not
meant to go out to meet him. After she heard that he was coming, her
desire was to get away from all the rest of the world, and be alone with
her thoughts. He was coming, he was safe, and her work was done. What
she had set out to do was accomplished--to bring him back, if it was
God's will, out of the jaws of death, for England's sake, for the world's
sake, for his sake, for her own sake. For her own sake? Yes, yes, in
spite of all, for her own sake. Whatever lay before, now, for this one
hour, for this moment of meeting he should be hers. But meet him, where?
Before all the world, with a smile of conventional welcome on her lips,
with the same hand-clasp that any friend and lover of humanity would give