The Garden of Allah Part 52

She laid the cross down on the edge of the _prie-dieu_.

There was red fire gleaming now on the windows of the church. She realised the pageant that was marching up the west, the pa.s.sion of the world as well as the purity which lay beyond the world. Her mind was disturbed. She glanced from the red radiance on the gla.s.s to the dull brown wood of the cross. Blood and agony had made it the mystical symbol that it was--blood and agony.

She had something to think out. That burden was still upon her mind, and now again she felt its weight, a weight that her interview with the priest had not lifted. For she had not been able to be quite frank with the priest. Something had held her back from absolute sincerity, and so he had not spoken quite plainly all that was in his mind. His words had been a little vague, yet she had understood the meaning that lay behind them.

Really, he had warned her against Androvsky. There were two men of very different types. One was unworldly as a child. The other knew the world.

Neither of them had any acquaintance with Androvsky's history, and both had warned her. It was instinct then that had spoken in them, telling them that he was a man to be shunned, perhaps feared. And her own instinct? What had it said? What did it say?

For a long time she remained in the church. But she could not think clearly, reason calmly, or even pray pa.s.sionately. For a vagueness had come into her mind like the vagueness of twilight that filled the s.p.a.ce beneath the starry roof, softening the crudeness of the ornaments, the garish colours of the plaster saints. It seemed to her that her thoughts and feelings lost their outlines, that she watched them fading like the shrouded forms of Arabs fading in the tunnels of Mimosa. But as they vanished surely they whispered, "That which is written is written."

The mosques of Islam echoed these words, and surely this little church that bravely stood among them.

"That which is written is written."

Domini rose from her knees, hid the wooden cross once more in her breast, and went out into the evening.

As she left the church door something occurred which struck the vagueness from her. She came upon Androvsky and the priest. They were standing together at the latter's gate, which he was in the act of opening to an accompaniment of joyous barking from Bous-Bous. Both men looked strongly expressive, as if both had been making an effort of some kind. She stopped in the twilight to speak to them.

"Monsieur Androvsky has kindly been paying me a visit," said Father Roubier.

"I am glad," Domini said. "We ought all to be friends here."

There was a perceptible pause. Then Androvsky lifted his hat.

"Good-evening, Madame," he said. "Good-evening, Father." And he walked away quickly.

The priest looked after him and sighed profoundly.

"Oh, Madame!" he exclaimed, as if impelled to liberate his mind to someone, "what is the matter with that man? What is the matter?"

He stared fixedly into the twilight after Androvsky's retreating form.

"With Monsieur Androvsky?"

She spoke quietly, but her mind was full of apprehension, and she looked searchingly at the priest.

"Yes. What can it be?"

"But--I don't understand."

"Why did he come to see me?"

"I asked him to come."

She blurted out the words without knowing why, only feeling that she must speak the truth.

"You asked him!"

"Yes. I wanted you to be friends--and I thought perhaps you might----"

"Yes?"

"I wanted you to be friends." She repeated it almost stubbornly.

"I have never before felt so ill at ease with any human being,"

exclaimed the priest with tense excitement. "And yet I could not let him go. Whenever he was about to leave me I was impelled to press him to remain. We spoke of the most ordinary things, and all the time it was as if we were in a great tragedy. What is he? What can he be?" (He still looked down the road.)

"I don't know. I know nothing. He is a man travelling, as other men travel."

"Oh, no!"

"What do you mean, Father?"

"I mean that other travellers are not like this man."

He leaned his thin hands heavily on the gate, and she saw, by the expression of his eyes, that he was going to say something startling.

"Madame," he said, lowering his voice, "I did not speak quite frankly to you this afternoon. You may, or you may not, have understood what I meant. But now I will speak plainly. As a priest I warn you, I warn you most solemnly, not to make friends with this man."

There was a silence, then Domini said:

"Please give me your reason for this warning."

"That I can't do."

"Because you have no reason, or because it is not one you care to tell me?"

"I have no reason to give. My reason is my instinct. I know nothing of this man--I pity him. I shall pray for him. He needs prayers, yes, he needs them. But you are a woman out here alone. You have spoken to me of yourself, and I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestly to break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky."

"Do you mean that you think him evil?"

"I don't know whether he is evil, I don't know what he is."

"I know he is not evil."

The priest looked at her, wondering.

"You know--how?"

"My instinct," she said, coming a step nearer, and putting her hand, too, on the gate near his. "Why should we desert him?"

"Desert him, Madame!"

Father Roubier's voice sounded amazed.

"Yes. You say he needs prayers. I know it. Father, are not the first prayers, the truest, those that go most swiftly to Heaven--acts?"

The priest did not reply for a moment. He looked at her and seemed to be thinking deeply.