five years in the French cavalry. After that I came to Monseigneur."

"And you have been with him--how long?"

"Fifteen years, Madame."

"Fifteen years," she repeated wonderingly. "Fifteen years here, in the
desert?"

"Here and elsewhere, Madame," he answered rather more shortly than
usual, and with a murmur of excuse left the tent.

Diana leaned back against the cushions with a little sigh. Gaston need
not have been afraid that she was trying to learn his master's secrets
from him. She had not fallen as low as that. The mystery of the man
whose path had crossed hers so terribly seemed to augment instead of
lessen as the time went on. What was the power in him that compelled
the devotion of his wild followers and the little French ex-cavalryman?
She knit her forehead in perplexity and was still puzzling over it when
he came back. Immaculate and well-groomed he was very different from
the dishevelled, bloodstained savage of half-an-hour before. She shot a
nervous glance at him, remembering her outburst, but he was not angry.
He looked grave, but his gravity seemed centred in himself as he passed
his lean fingers tenderly over his smooth chin. She had seen Aubrey do
similarly hundreds of times. Occidental or Oriental, men seemed very
alike. She waited for him to speak and waited vainly. One of the
taciturn fits to which she had grown accustomed had come over
him--hours sometimes in which he simply ignored her altogether. The
evening meal was silent. He spoke once to Gaston, but he spoke in
Arabic, and the servant replied only with a nod of compliance. And