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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"


"No," she answered. "I could never hate you--now."
"Not if--not if I had done you harm? Not if I had done you a wrong?"
"Could you ever do me a wrong?" she asked.
She sat, looking at him as if in deep thought, for a moment.
"I could almost as easily believe that God could," she said at last
simply.
"Then you--you have perfect trust in me?"
"But--have you ever thought I had not?" she asked. There was wonder in
her voice.
"But I have given my life to you," she added still with wonder. "I am
here in the desert with you. What more can I give? What more can I do?"
He put his arms about her and drew her head down on his shoulder.
"Nothing, nothing. You have given, you have done everything--too much,
too much. I feel myself below you, I know myself below you--far, far
down."
"How can you say that? I couldn't have loved you if it were so." She
spoke with complete conviction.
"Perhaps," he said, in a low voice, "perhaps women never realise what
their love can do. It might--it might--"
"What, Boris?"
"It might do what Christ did--go down into hell to preach to the--to the
spirits in prison.


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