Poor Saidee! Poor, beautiful Saidee; changed in
soul, though so little changed in face! Could it be that she had never
called in spirit to her sister?
Victoria bowed her head, and tears fell from her eyes upon her cold bare
arms, crossed on the white wall.
Saidee did not want her. Saidee was sorry that she had come. Her coming
had only made things worse.
"I wish--" the girl was on the point of saying to herself--"I wish I'd
never been born." But before the words shaped themselves fully in her
mind--terrible words, because she had felt the beauty and sacred meaning
of life--the desert spoke to her.
"Saidee does want you," the spirit of the wind and the glimmering sands
seemed to say. "If she had not wanted you, do you think you would have
been shown this picture, with your sister in it, the picture which
brought you half across the world? She called once, long ago, and you
heard the call. You were allowed to hear it. Are you so weak as to
believe, just because you're hurt and suffering, that such messages
between hearts mean nothing? Saidee may not know that she wants you, but
she does, and needs you more than ever before. This is your hour of
temptation. You thought everything was going to be wonderfully easy,
almost too easy, and instead, it is difficult, that's all. But be brave
for Saidee and yourself, now and in days to come, for you are here only
just in time."
The pure, strong wind blowing over the dunes was a tonic to Victoria's
soul, and she breathed it eagerly.
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