For now she knew a moment of utter despair, in which all things seemed
to dissolve into atoms and sink down out of her sight. She stood
quivering in blackness. She stood absolutely alone, more absolutely
alone than any woman had ever been, than any human being had ever been.
She seemed presently, as the blackness faded into something pale, like a
ghastly twilight, to see herself--her wraith, as it were--standing in a
vast landscape, vast as the desert, companionless, lost, forgotten, out
of mind, watching for something that would never come, listening for
some voice that was hushed in eternal silence.
That was to be her life, she thought--could she face it? Could she
endure it? And everything within her said to her that she could not.
And then, just then, when she felt that she must sink down and give
up the battle of life, she seemed to see by her side a shape, a little
shape like a child. And it lifted up a hand to her hand.
And she knew that the vast landscape was God's garden, the Garden of
Allah, and that no day, no night could ever pass without God walking in
it.
Hearing a knock upon the great gate of the garden Smain uncurled himself
on his mat within the tent, rose lazily to his feet, and, without a
rose, strolled languidly to open to the visitor.
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