But when the girl had been rather more than a week in the
Zaouia, Saidee spoke out.
"I suppose you've guessed why I come up on the roof at sunset," she
said.
"Yes," Victoria answered.
"I thought so, by your face. Babe, if you'd accused me of anything, or
reproached me, I'd have brazened it out with you. But you've never said
a word, and your eyes--I don't know what they've been like, unless
violets after rain. They made me feel a beast--a thousand times worse
than I would if you'd put on an injured air. Last night I dreamed that
you died of grief, and I buried you under the sand. But I was sorry, and
tore all the sand away with my fingers till I found you again--and you
were alive after all. It seemed like an allegory. I'm going to dig you
up again, you little loving thing!"
"That means you'll give me back your confidence, doesn't it?" Victoria
asked, smiling in a way that would have bewitched a man who loved her.
"Yes; and something else. I'm going to tell you a thing you'll like to
hear. I've written to _him_ about you--our cypher's ready now--and said
that you'd had the most curious effect on me. I'd tried to resist you,
but I couldn't, not even to please him--or myself. I told him I'd
promised to wait for you to help me; and though I didn't see what you
could possibly do, still, your faith was contagious. I said that in
spite of myself I felt some vague stirrings of hope now and then.
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