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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"

"
"But," he said, "that fire is----"
He did not finish the sentence, but put up his hand and turned her face
till she was looking, not at the fire, but at him.
"It is not like me," he said. "Men made it, and--it's a fire that can
sink into ashes."
An expression of sudden exaltation shone in her eyes.
"And God made you," she said. "And put into you the spark that is
eternal."
And now again she thought, she dared, she loved to think of the crucifix
and of the moment when he would see it in the tent.
"And God made you love me," she said. "What is it?"
Androvsky had moved suddenly, as if he were going to get up from the
warm ground.
"Did you--?"
"No," he said in a low voice. "Go on, Domini. Speak to me."
He sat still.
A sudden longing came to her to know if to-night he were feeling as
she was the sacredness of their relation to each other. Never had they
spoken intimately of religion or of the mysteries that lie beyond and
around human life. Once or twice, when she had been about to open her
heart to him, to let him understand her deep sense of the things unseen,
something had checked her, something in him.


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