the Arab that had captured her was vaguely disquieting, for it
suggested possibilities that would not have existed in a raw native, or
one only superficially coated with a veneer of civilisation. He seemed
to become infinitely more sinister, infinitely more horrible. She
looked at her watch with sudden apprehension. The day was wearing away
quickly. Soon he would come. Her breath came quick and short and the
tears welled up in her eyes.

"I mustn't! I mustn't!" she whispered in a kind of desperation. "If I
cry again I shall go mad." She forced them back, and crossing to the
big black divan that she had scorned before dropped down among the soft
cushions. She was so tired, and her head throbbed persistently.

She was asleep when the servant brought tea, but she started up as he
put the tray on a stool beside her.

"It is Madame's own tea. If she will be good enough to say if it is
made to her taste," he said anxiously, as if his whole happiness was
contained in the tiny teapot at which he was frowning deprecatingly.

His assiduity jarred on Diana's new-found jangling nerves. She
recognised that he was sincere in his efforts to please her, but just
now they only seemed an added humiliation. She longed to shout "Go
away!" like an angry schoolboy, but she managed to give him the
information he wanted, and putting cigarettes and matches by her he
went out with a little smile of satisfaction. The longing for fresh air
and the desire to see what place she had been brought to grew
irresistible as the evening came nearer. She went to the open doorway.
A big awning stretched before it, supported on lances. She stepped out
from under its shade and looked about her wonderingly. It was a big