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Updated: May 21, 2025
"I don't know that it has many more faults than others," said Nevill, defending it, "only they're different." "But about the scandal that drove Ben Halim away?" Stephen ventured on. "Strange things were whispered at the time, I remember, because Ben Halim was a handsome man and well known. One looked twice at him in his uniform when he went by on a splendid horse.
He was a Spahi, stationed in Algiers, and he owned a house there." "Ah, in Algiers!" Stephen began to see light rather a lurid light. "Yes. His name was Cassim ben Halim el Cheikh el Arab. Before he had known Saidee two weeks, he proposed. She took a little while to think it over, and I begged her to say 'no' but one day when Mrs.
"There's apparently a conspiracy of silence to keep us from finding out anything about Miss Ray's sister as Ben Halim's wife," he said to Nevill when they had left the curiosity-shop. "Also, what has become of Ben Halim." "You'll learn that there's always a conspiracy of silence in Africa, where Arabs are concerned," Nevill answered.
The present Governor and his staff had come to Algiers after his supposed death; and if Nevill suspected a deliberate reticence behind certain answers to his questions, perhaps he was mistaken. Cassim ben Halim and his affairs could now be of little importance to French officials.
"But of course I have heard of Ben Halim, and I have seen him, too," she said; "only it was long ago maybe ten years. Yes, I could not have been seventeen. It is already long that he went away from Algiers, no one knows where. Now he is said to be dead. Have you not heard of him, Monsieur Nevill? You must have. He lived at Djenan el Hadj; close to the Jardin d'Essai. You know the place well.
The few living relatives he had in Algeria believed him to be dead; and a house which Ben Halim had owned not far from Bou Saada, had passed into the hands of his uncle, Caïd of a desert-village in the district. As to Ben Halim's marriage with an American girl, nobody knew anything.
"I have friends who knew him. And I myself have seen Cassim ben Halim." "Thou hast seen him!" Victoria cried, clasping her hands tightly together. She longed to press them over her heart, which was like a bird beating its wings against the bars of a cage. "Long ago. I am much younger than he." "Yes, I see that," Victoria answered. "But thou knewest him! That is something. And my sister.
They were to make a morning call on Mademoiselle Soubise in her curiosity-shop, and ask about Ben Halim, the husband of Saidee Ray. Victoria was coming to luncheon, for she had accepted Lady MacGregor's invitation. Her note had been brought in last night, while he and Nevill walked in the garden. Afterwards Lady MacGregor had shown it to them both.
On the snowy headstones and flat platforms, drops of rose-coloured wax from little candles, lay like tears of blood shed by the mourners, and there was a scattered spray of faded orange blossoms, brought by some loving hand from a far-away garden in an oasis. "Here lies my cousin, Cassim ben Halim," said the Caïd, pointing to a grave comparatively new, surmounted at the head with a carved turban.
"I don't know any more about her than if Cassim ben Halim had really carried my sister off to fairyland, and shut the door behind them. You see, I was only eight years old. I couldn't make my own life. After Saidee was married and taken to Algiers, my stepmother began to imagine herself in love with an American from Indiana, whom she met in Paris.
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