Only when they reached the great hotel, now closed and
deserted, did she glance away. She could not pass the tower without
seeing it. But she saw it through a mist of tears, and her hands
trembled upon the reins they held. For a moment she felt that she must
break down, that she had no more strength left in her. But they came to
the statue of the Cardinal holding the double cross towards the desert
like a weapon. And she looked at it and saw the Christ.
"Boris," she whispered, "there is the Christ. Let us think only of that
tonight."
She saw him look at it steadily.
"You remember," she said, at the bottom of the avenue of cypresses--"at
El-Largani--_Factus obediens usque ad mortem Crucis_?"
"Yes, Domini."
"We can be obedient too. Let us be obedient too."
When she said that, and looked at him, Androvsky felt as if he were on
his knees before her, as he was upon his knees in the garden when he
could not go away. But he felt, too, that then, though he had loved her,
he had not known how to love her, how to love anyone. She had taught him
now. The lesson sank into his heart like a sword and like balm.
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