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Hichens, Robert Smythe, 1864-1950

"The Garden of Allah"

Yet she had sometimes felt as if he were seeking, perhaps
with fear, perhaps with ignorance, perhaps with uncertainty, but still
seeking to draw near to God. That was why she had been able to hope
for him, why she had not been more troubled by his loss of the faith in
which he had been brought up, and to which she belonged heart and soul.
Could she have been wrong in her feeling--deceived? There were men in
the world, she knew, who denied the existence of a God, and bitterly
ridiculed all faith. She remembered the blasphemies of her father. Had
she married a man who, like him, was lost, who, as he had, furiously
denied God?
A cold thrill of fear came into her heart. Suddenly she felt as if,
perhaps, even in her love, Androvsky had been a stranger to her.
She stood upon the sand. It chanced that she looked towards the camp of
the Ouled Nails, whose fires blazed upon the dunes. While she looked she
was presently aware of a light that detached itself from the blaze of
the fires, and moved from them, coming towards the place where she was
standing, slowly. The young moon only gave a faint ray to the night.


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