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Circumstances and Robert Lemaire had been too much for her. Both had been cruel. She was something of a slave to both. Lemaire was an utter failure, but there lurked within him still, under the waves of absinthe, traces of the dominating power which had long ago made him a success.

Madame Lemaire had worshipped him once, had adored his strength and beauty. They were gone now. He was a wreck. But he was a wreck with fierceness in it. And command with him had become a habit. And Africa bids one accept. And so Madame Lemaire had stayed for ten long years drudging at the inn beside the salt mountain, and staring down the long white road for the something strange and interesting from the desert that never, never came.

And still Lemaire drank absinthe, and cursed and drowsed. For ten long years! And still Hadj squatted upon his haunches and drugged himself with keef. And still Madame Lemaire stood under the trellised vine, with the sand-grains in her hair, and gazed and gazed over the plain.