The Sheik

"I mustn't kiss you," he said huskily, as he put her from him gently. "I don't think I should have the courage to let you go if I did. I didn't mean to touch you."

He turned from her with a little gesture of weariness.

Fear fled back into her eyes. "I don't want to go," she whispered faintly.

He paused by the writing-table and took up the revolver he had loaded earlier, breaking it absently, spinning the magazine between his finger and thumb, and replaced it before answering.

"You don't understand. There is no other way," he said dully.

"If you really loved me you would not let me go," she cried, with a miserable sob.

"If I loved you?" he echoed, with a hard laugh. "If I loved you! It is because I love you so much that I am able to do it. If I loved you a little less I would let you stay and take your chance."

She flung out her hands appealingly. "I want to stay, Ahmed! I love you!" she panted, desperate—for she knew his obstinate determination, and she saw her chance of happiness slipping away.

He did not move or look at her, and his brows drew together in the dreaded heavy frown. "You don't know what you are saying. You don't know what it would mean," he replied in a voice from which he had forced all expression. "If you married me you would have to live always here in the desert. I cannot leave my people, and I am—too much of an Arab to let you go alone. It would be no life for you. You think you love me now, though God knows how you can after what I have done to you, but a time would come when you would find that your love for me did not compensate for your life here. And marriage with me is unthinkable. You know what I am and what I have been. You know that I am not fit to live with, not fit to be near any decent woman. You know what sort of a damnable life I have led; the memory of it would always come between us—you would never forget, you would never trust me. And if you could, of your charity, both forgive and forget, you know that I am not easy to live with. You know my devilish temper—it has not spared you in the past, it might not spare you in the future. Do you think that I could bear to see you year after year growing to hate me more? You think that I am cruel now, but I am thinking what is best for you afterwards. Some day you will think of me a little kindly because I had the strength to let you go. You are so young, your life is only just beginning. You are strong enough to put the memory of these last months out of your mind—to forget the past and live only for the future. No one need ever know. There can be no fear for your—reputation. Things are forgotten in the silence of the desert. Mustafa Ali is many hundreds of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men need not be considered, they speak or are silent as I wish. There is only Raoul, and there is no question of him. He has not spared me his opinion. You must go back to your own country, to your own people, to your own life, in which I have no place or part, and soon all this will seem only like an ugly dream."

The sweat was standing out on his forehead and his hands were clenched with the effort he was making, but her head was buried in her hands, and she did not see the torture in his face, she only heard his soft, low voice inexorably decreeing her fate and shutting her out from happiness in quiet almost indifferent tones.

She shuddered convulsively. "Ahmed! I go!" she wailed.

He looked up sharply, his face livid, and tore her hands from her face. "Good God! You don't mean—I haven't—You aren't–" he gasped hoarsely, looking down at her with a great fear in his eyes.

She guessed what he meant and the color rushed into her face. The temptation to lie to him and let the consequences rest with the future was almost more than she could resist. One little word and she would be in his arms … but afterwards–? It was the fear of the afterwards that kept her silent. The colour slowly drained from her face and she shook her head mutely.