This was no dream.

Omar's face.

But why?
What was he after?
He was too indolent in the happy languor of the moment to answer the question.

It darted through his brain and passed out, leaving him free to listen again to the beating of her heart; to that precious and delicate sound which filled the quiet immensity of the night.

Glancing upwards he saw the motionless head of the woman looking down at him in a tender gleam of liquid white between the long eyelashes, whose shadow rested on the soft curve of her cheek; and under the caress of that look, the uneasy wonder and the obscure fear of that apparition, crouching and creeping in turns towards the fire that was its guide, were lost--were drowned in the quietude of all his senses, as pain is drowned in the flood of drowsy serenity that follows upon a dose of opium.
He altered the position of his head by ever so little, and now could see easily that apparition which he had seen a minute before and had nearly forgotten already.