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For a full twenty minutes or so he pondered, uncertain what reply to send. In any case, even if he left for London on the following morning, he could not arrive at Charing Cross for fully ten days.
At last he took up his cane and hat, and descending in the lift, crossed the great hotel garden, making his way down the short hill towards the town. It was then nearly eleven o’clock, and all was silent and deserted except for the armed Arab watchman in his hooded cloak. On his right as he walked lay a small public garden, a prettily laid out space rising on the huge boulders which form the gorge of the Nile – a place filled by high feathery palms, flaming poinsettias, and a wealth of tropical flowers.
But as he passed the entrance in the shadow there suddenly broke upon his ears a woman’s voice, speaking rapidly in Italian – a language with which he was well conversant.
He halted instantly. The voice was Lola’s! In the shadow he could just distinguish two forms, that of a man and a woman.
He drew back in breathless amazement. Mademoiselle’s eagerness to return across from Elephantine was now explained. She had kept a secret tryst.
As he watched, he heard her speaking quickly and angrily in an imperative tone. The man was standing in the full moonlight, and Waldron could see him quite plainly – a dark, short-bearded man of middle-age and middle-height, wearing a soft felt Tyrolese hat.
He made no response, but only bowed low at his unceremonious dismissal.
The stranger was about to leave her when suddenly, as though on reflection, she exclaimed, still speaking in perfect Italian:
“No. Return here in half an hour. I will go back to the hotel and write my reply. Until then do not be seen. Gigleux must never know that you have been here – you understand? I know that you will remain my friend, though everyone’s hand is now raised against me, but if Gigleux suspected that you had been here he would cable home at once – and then who knows what might not happen! I could never return. I would rather kill myself?”
“The signorina may rely upon my absolute discretion,” declared the man in a low, intense voice.
“Benissimo,” was her hurried response. “Return here in half an hour, and I will give you my answer. It is hard, cruel, inhuman of them to treat me thus! But it is, I suppose, only what I must expect. I am only a woman, and I must make the sacrifice.”
And with a wave of her small, ungloved hand she dismissed him, and took a path which led through the public garden back to the hotel by a shorter cut.
Meanwhile Waldron strode on past the railway station to the quay, glanced at his watch, and then, half an hour later, after he had dispatched his telegram he was lurking in the shadows at that same spot.
He watched Lola hand a letter to the stranger, and wish him “Addio e buon viaggio!”
Then he followed the bearded man down to the station, where, from a European official of whom he made a confidential inquiry, he learnt that the stranger had arrived in Assouan from Cairo only two hours before, bearing a return ticket to Europe by the mail route via Port Said and Brindisi.
With curiosity he watched the Italian leave by the mail for Cairo ten minutes later, and then turned away and retraced his steps to the Cataract Hotel, plunged deep in thought.
There was a mystery somewhere – a strange and very grave mystery.
What could be that message of such extreme importance and secrecy that it could not be trusted to the post?
Who was old Gigleux of whom Mademoiselle Duprez went in such fear? Was she really what she represented herself to be?
No. He felt somehow assured that all was not as it should be. A mystery surrounded both uncle and niece, while the angular Miss Lambert remained as silent and impenetrable as the sphinx.
Diplomat and man of the world as was Hubert Waldron – a man who had run the whole gamut of life in the gay centres of Europe – he was naturally suspicious, for the incident of that night seemed inexplicable.
Something most secret and important must be in progress to necessitate the travelling of a special messenger from Europe far away into Upper Egypt, merely to deliver a letter and obtain a response.
“Yes,” he murmured to himself as he passed through the portals of the hotel, which were thrown open to him by two statuesque Nubian servants, who bowed low as he passed. “Yes; there are some curious features about this affair. I will watch and discover the truth. Lola is in some secret and imminent peril. Of that I feel absolutely convinced.”
Chapter Three.
In the Holy of Holies
Five days later.
Boulos, the faithful Egyptian dragoman, in his red fez and long caftan of yellow silk reaching to his heels, stood leaning over the bows of the small white steamer which was slowly wending its way around the many curves of the mighty river which lay between the Island of Philae and the Second Cataract at Wady Haifa, the gate of the Sudan.
No railway runs through that wild desert of rock and sand, and the road to Khartoum lies by water over those sharp rocks and ever-shifting shoals where navigation is always dangerous, and progress only possible by daylight.
Boulos, the dark, pleasant-faced man who is such an inveterate gossip, who knows much more of Egyptology than his parrot-talk to travellers, and who is popular with all those who go to and fro between Cairo and Khartoum, stood chatting in Arabic with the white-bearded, black-faced reis, or pilot.
The latter, wearing a white turban, was wrapped in a red cloak though the sun was blazing. He squatted upon a piece of carpet in the bows, idly smoking a cigarette from dawn till sundown, and navigating the vessel by raising his right or left hand as signal to the man at the helm.
A Nile steamer has no captain. The Nubian reis is supreme over the native crew, and being a man of vast experience of the river, knows by the appearance of the water where lie the ever-shifting sand-banks.
“Oh yes,” remarked the reis in Arabic; “by Allah’s grace we shall anchor at Abu Simbel by sunset. It is now just past the noon,” added the bearded old man – who looked like a prophet – as he glanced upward at the burning sun.
“And when shall we leave?” asked the dragoman.
“At noon to-morrow – if Allah willeth it,” replied the old man. “To-night the crew will give a fantasia. Will you tell the passengers.”
“If it be thy will,” responded Boulos, drawing at his excellent cigarette.
“How farest thou this journey?”
“Very well. The Prophet hath given me grace to sell several statuettes and scarabs. The little American hath bought my bronze of Isis.”
“I congratulate thee, O wise one among the infidels,” laughed the old man, raising his left hand to alter the course of the vessel. “Thy bronze hath lain for many moons – eh?”
“Since the last Ramadan. And now, with Allah’s help, I have sold it to the American for a thousand piastres.”
Old Melek the reis grunted, and thoughtfully rolled another cigarette, which he handed unstuck to his friend, the sign of Arab courtesy. Boulos ran his tongue along it, and raising his hand to his fez in thanks, lit it with great gusto, glancing up to the deck where his charges were lolling beneath the awning.
Lola, in white, and wearing her sun-helmet, leaned over the rail and called in her broken English:
“Boulos, when do we arrive at Abu Simbel?”
“At ze sunset, mees,” was the dragoman’s smiling reply. “To-morrow morning, at haf-pas tree we land, and we watch ze sun rise from inside ze gr-reat Tem-pel of Rameses.” Then raising his voice, so that all could hear, as is the habit of dragomans: “Ze gr-reat Tem-pel is cut in ze rock and made by Rameses to hees gr-reat gawd, Ra, gawd of ze sun. In ze front are fo-our colossi – gr-reat carved statues of Rameses seated. Zees, la-dees and gen’lemens, you will be able to see first as we come round ze bend of ze Nile about seex o’clock. To-morrow morning we land at haf-pas tree, and ze sight is one of ze grandest in all our Egypt.”
“Half-past three!” echoed Chester Dawson, who was sitting in a deck-chair at Edna’s side. “I shall still be in my berth, I hope. No Temple of Rameses would get me up before sunrise.”
“Say, you’re real lazy,” declared the buxom American girl. “I’ll be right there – you bet.”
“But is the old ruin worth it? We’ve seen the wonderful works of Rameses all up the Nile.”
“Waal – is it worth coming to Egypt at all?” she asked in her native drawl. “Guess it is – better than Eu-rope – even if you’re fed up by it.”
“Oh, I don’t know. This beastly heat makes me sick,” and he gave a vigorous stroke with his horsehair fly-whisk with which each traveller was provided. Beelzebub assuredly lived in Egypt, for was he not the god of flies. Everything has a god in Egypt.
Boulos had resumed his comfortable chat with Melek, the reis. His thousand piastre deal of that morning had fully satisfied him. Not that he ever overcharged the travellers for any antiques which he sold them. As everyone on the Nile knows – from Cairo to far Khartoum – Boulos the laughing, easy-going though gorgeously attired dragoman, is a scrupulously honest dealer. He is a friend of the greatest Egyptologists in the world and, unlike the common run of dragomans, has studied Egyptian history, and possesses quite a remarkable knowledge of hieroglyphics. Many a well-known European professor has sat at the knee of Boulos, and many an antique is now in one or other of the European national collections which originally passed through the hands of the ever-faithful Boulos.
Waldron was sipping an innocuous drink composed of Evian water with a lime squeezed into it, and chatting in French with old Jules Gigleux, passing one of those usual mornings of laziness, away from the worries of letters and newspapers, which are so delightful up the Nile.
Beneath the wide awning the soft, hot breeze pleasantly fanned them, while away on the banks rose the feathery palms on the tiny green strip of cultivated mud, sometimes only a few feet in width, and then the desert – that great glaring waste of brown sand – stretching away to the horizon where the sky shone like burnished copper.
Mademoiselle, as full of mischief as ever, was the very life and soul of that smart party of moneyed folk which included two English peers, three American millionaires, an Austrian banker, a wealthy Russian prince, and two Members of Parliament who had paired. It had been whispered that she was daughter of Duprez, the millionaire sugar-refiner of Lyons; and, as everyone knows, the sugar of the Maison Duprez is used in nearly every household throughout France.
Yet Waldron had heard quite a different story from her own lips while they had been seated together on deck the previous evening drinking coffee.
“Ah?” she had sighed, “if I were only wealthy like the several other girls of this party, it would be different. Perhaps I could break away from uncle, and remain independent. But, alas! I cannot. I owe everything to him – I am dependent upon him for all I have.”
This surprised Hubert considerably. Hitherto he had believed her to be the daughter of a wealthy man, because Miss Lambert showed her such marked deference. But such apparently was not the fact. Indeed she had declared later on to Waldron that she was very poor, and to her eccentric old uncle she was indebted for everything she received.
Hers was a curious, complex character. Sometimes she would sit and chat and flirt violently with him – for by her woman’s intuition she knew full well that he admired her greatly – while at others she would scarcely utter a word to him.
Hubert Waldron detested old Gigleux. Even though he sat chatting and laughing with him that morning, he held him in supreme contempt for his constant espionage upon his niece. The old fellow seemed ubiquitous. He turned up in every corner of the steamer, always feigning to take no notice of his niece’s constant companionship with the diplomat, and yet his sharp, shrewd eyes took in everything.
On more than one occasion the Englishman was upon the point of demanding outright why that irritating observation was so constantly kept, nevertheless with a diplomat’s discretion, he realised that a judicious silence was best.
That long, blazing day passed slowly, till at last the sun sank westward over the desert in a flame of green and gold. Then the thirty or so passengers stood upon the deck waiting in patience till, suddenly rounding the sharp bend of the river, they saw upon the right – carved in the high, sandstone cliff – the greatest and most wonderful sight in all Nubia.
Lola was at the moment leaning over the rail, while Waldron stood idly smoking at her side.
“See!” he cried suddenly. “Over there! Those four colossal seated figures guarding the entrance of the temple which faces the sunrise. That is Abu Simbel.”
“How perfectly marvellous!” gasped the girl, astounded at the wonderful monument of Rameses the Great.
“The temple is hewn in the solid rock – a temple about the size of Westminster Abbey in London. In the Holy of holies are four more seated figures in the darkness, and to-morrow as we stand in there at dawn, the sun, as it rises, will shine in at the temple door and gradually light up the faces of those images, until they glow and seem to become living beings – surely the most impressive sight of all the wonders of Egypt.”
“I am longing to see it,” replied the girl, her eyes fixed in fascination at the far-off colossi seated there gazing with such calm, contented expression over the Nile waters, now blood-red in the still and gorgeous desert sunset.
On the arid banks there was no sign of life, or even of vegetation. All was desert, rock, sand, and desolation. Where was the great, palpitating civilisation which had existed there in the days of Rameses, the cultured world which worshipped the great god, Ra, in that most wonderful of all temples? Gone, every trace save the place where the sun god was worshipped, swept out of existence, effaced, and forgotten.
Over the vessel a great grey vulture hovered with slowly flapping wings. Then from the bows came a low chant, and the passengers craning their necks below, saw that the black-faced crew had turned towards Mecca and sunk upon their knees, including even the gorgeous Boulos himself, and with many genuflexions were adoring Allah.
“Allah is great. Allah is merciful. He is the One,” they cried in their low, musical Arabic. “There is no god but Allah!”
The sun sank and twilight came swiftly, as it does in the glowing, mystic East. And the white-bearded reis, his prayers finished, pushed on the steamer more quickly so as to anchor opposite Abu Simbel before darkness fell. The excitement among the passengers grew intense, for, on the morrow, ere the first pink of the dawn, the travellers were to stand within that rock-hewn temple, the most wonderful of all the works of the Pharaohs.
The evening proved a merry one, for after dinner, with the vessel anchored in mid-stream – to obviate thieves – opposite the great temple, the Nubian crew gave a fantasia, or native song and dance, for the benefit of the travellers.
On each trip from Shellal to Wady Haifa this was usual, for European travellers like to hear the weird native music, and the crooning desert songs in which Allah is praised so incessantly. Besides, a collection is made afterwards, and the sturdy, hard-working crew are benefited by many piastres.
On the lower deck, beneath the brilliant stars the black-faced toilers of the Nile beat their tom-toms vigorously and chanted weirdly while the passengers stood leaning over, watching and applauding. The crew squatted in a circle, and one after the other sprang up and performed a wild, mad dance while their companions kept time by clapping their hands or strumming upon their big earthenware tom-toms.
Then at eleven, the hour when the dynamos cease their humming and the electric light goes out, the concert ended with all the crew – headed by the venerable, white-bearded old pilot – standing up, salaaming and crying in their broken English:
“Gud nites, la-dees and gen’lemens. Gud nites?”
It was just before three on the following morning when the huge gong, carried around by an Arab servant, aroused everyone, and very soon from most of the cabins there turned out sleepy travellers who found the black giant Hassan ready with his little cups of delicious black coffee.
Boulos was there, already gorgeous in a pale green silk robe, while the steamer had half an hour before moved up to the landing-place.
“La-dees and gen’lemens!” cried the dragoman in his loud, drawling tone, “we no-ow go to see ze gree-at tem-pel of ze gawd, Ra – gawd of ze sun – ze tem-pel of ze sun-rise and ze greatest monument in all our Eg-eept. We shall start in fif mineets. In fif mineets, la-dees. Monuments tick-eets ve-ry much wanted. No gallopin’ donkeys in Abu Simbel!”
Whereat there was a laugh.
Then the under-dragoman, a person in a less gorgeous attire, proceeded to make up a parcel of candles, matches, and magnesium wire, and presently the travellers, all of whom had hastily dressed, followed their guide on shore, and over the tiny strip of cultivated mud until they came to the broad stone steps which led from the Nile bank to the square doorway of the temple.
Here a number of candles were lit by the under-dragoman; and Waldron, taking one, escorted Lola and Miss Lambert. Within, they found a huge, echoing temple with high columns marvellously carved and covered by hieroglyphics and sculptured pictures.
Through one huge chamber after another they passed, the vaulted roof so high that the light of their candles did not reach to it. Only could it be seen when the magnesium wire was burned, and then the little knot of travellers stood aghast in wonder at its stupendous proportions.
At last they stood in the Holy of holies – a small, square chamber at the extreme end.
In the centre stood the altar for the living sacrifices, the narrow groves in the stones telling plainly their use – the draining off of the blood.
All was darkness. Only Boulos spoke, his drawling, parrot-like voice explaining many intensely interesting facts concerning that spot where Rameses the Great worshipped the sun god.
Then there was a dead silence. Not one of that gay, chattering company dared to speak, so impressive and awe-inspiring was it all.
Suddenly, from out of the darkness they saw before them slowly, yet distinctly, four huge figures seated, their hands lying upon their knees, gradually come into being as the sun’s faint pink rays, entering by the door, struck upon their stone faces, infusing life into their sphinx-like countenances until they glowed and seemed almost to speak.
Expressions of amazement broke from everyone’s lips.
“Marvellous!” declared Lola in an awed whisper. “Truly they seem really to live. It is astounding.”
“Yes,” answered Waldron. “And thus they have lived each morning in the one brief hour of the sunrise through all the ages. From Rameses to Cleopatra each king and queen of Egypt has stood upon this spot and worshipped their great gods, Ra and the all-merciful Osiris. Such a sight as this surely dwarfs our present civilisation, and should bring us nearer to thoughts of our own Christian God – the Almighty.”
Chapter Four.
Contains a Bitter Truth
When Hubert returned on board the Arabia and entered his deck-cabin, one of a long row of small cubicles, he started back in surprise, for Gigleux was there.
The Frenchman was confused at his sudden discovery, but only for a second. Then, with his calm, pleasant smile, he said in French:
“Ah, m’sieur, a thousand pardons! I was looking for the book I lent you the other day – that book of Maspero’s. I want to refer to it.”
Waldron felt at once that the excuse was a lame one.
“I left it in the fumoir last night, I believe.”
“Ah! Then I will go and get it,” replied the white-haired old fellow fussily. “But I hope,” he added, “that m’sieur will grant pardon for this unwarrantable intrusion. I did not go to the temple. It was a trifle too early for me.”
“You missed a great treat,” replied the Englishman bluntly, tossing his soft felt hat upon his narrow little bed. “Mademoiselle will tell you all about it.”
“You took her under your charge – as usual, eh?” sniffed the old fellow.
“Oh, yes. I escorted both her and Miss Lambert,” was the diplomat’s reply. “But look here, M’sieur Gigleux,” he went on, “you seem to have a distinct antipathy towards me. You seem to be averse to any courtesy I show towards your niece. Why is this? Tell me.”
The old man’s eyes opened widely, and he struck an attitude.
“Mais non, m’sieur!” he declared quickly. “You quite misunderstand me. I am old – and perhaps I may be a little eccentric. Lola says that I am.”
“But is that any reason why I should not behave with politeness to mam’zelle?”
The old man with the closely cropped white hair paused for a few seconds. That direct question nonplussed him. He drew a long breath, and as he did so the expression upon his mobile face seemed to alter.
In the silence Hubert Waldron was leaning against the edge of the little mosquito-curtained bed, while the Frenchman stood in the narrow doorway, for, in that little cabin, there was only sufficient room for one person to move about comfortably.
“Yes,” responded the girl’s uncle. “Now that you ask me this very direct question I reply quite frankly that there is a reason – a very strong and potent reason why you, a man occupying an official position in the British diplomacy should show no undue courtesy to Mademoiselle Lola.”
“Why?” asked Hubert, much surprised.
“For several reasons. Though, as I expect she has already explained to you, she is a penniless orphan, daughter of my sister, whose wealthy husband lost every sou in the failure of the banking firm of Chenier Frères of Marseilles. I have accepted the responsibility of her education and I have already planned out her future.”
“A wealthy husband, I suppose,” remarked the Englishman in a hard voice.
“M’sieur has guessed the truth.”
“And she is aware of this?”
“Quite,” was the old man’s calm reply. “Therefore you now know the reason why I am averse to your attentions.”
“Well, at least you are frank,” declared the other with a laugh. “But I assure you, M’sieur Gigleux, that I have no matrimonial intentions whatsoever. I’m a confirmed bachelor.”
Gigleux shook his head wisely.
“When a girl of Lola’s bright and irresponsible disposition is thrown hourly into the society of a man such as yourself, my dear friend, there is danger – always a grave danger.”
“And is she fond of this man whom you have designated as her husband?”
“Nowadays girls marry for position – not for love,” he grunted.
“In France, yes – but scarcely so in England,” Waldron retorted, his anger rising.
“Well, m’sieur, you have asked me a question, and I have replied,” the Frenchman said. “I trust that this open conversation will make no difference to our friendship, though I shall take it as a personal favour if, in the future, you will not seek Lola’s society quite so much.”
“As you wish, m’sieur,” replied the diplomat savagely. He hated the crafty, keen-eyed old fellow and took no pains now to conceal his antipathy.
The blow which he had for the past fortnight expected had fallen. He intended at the earliest moment to seek Lola, and inquire further into the curious situation, for if the truth be told, he had really fallen deeply in love with her, even though she might be penniless and dependent upon the old man.
When old Gigleux had passed along the deck he sat down upon the bed and lighting a cigarette, reflected. He was a younger son with only seven hundred a year in addition to his pay from the Foreign Office. Madrid was an expensive post. Indeed, what European capital is not expensive to the men whose duty it is to keep up the prestige of the British Empire abroad? Diplomacy, save for the “plums,” is an ill-paid profession, for entertaining is a constant drain upon one’s pocket, as every Foreign Office official, from the poverty-stricken Consul to the Ambassador, harassed by debt, can, alas! testify.
Many an Ambassador to a foreign Court has been ruined by the constant drain of entertaining. Appearances and social entertainments are his very life, and if he cuts down his expenses Britain’s prestige must suffer, and at Downing Street they will quickly query the cause of his parsimony. So the old game goes on, and the truth is, that many a man of vast diplomatic experience and in a position of high responsibility is worse off in pocket than the average suburban tradesman.
Hubert Waldron bit his lip. After all, he was a fool to allow himself to think of her. No diplomat should marry until he became appointed Minister, and a bachelor life was a pleasant one. Curious, he thought, that he, a man who had run the whole gamut of life in the capitals, and who had met so many pretty and fascinating women in that gay world which revolves about the Embassies, should become attracted by that merry little French girl, Lola Duprez.
Breakfast over, the party went ashore again, now in linen clothes and sun-helmets, to wander about the temple till noon, when they were to leave for Wady Haifa.
He saw Lola and Edna Eastham walking with Chester Dawson, so, following, he joined them and at last secured an opportunity of speaking with Lola alone.
They were strolling slowly around the edge of the sandstone cliff, away from the colossal façade of the temple, and out of sight of the steamer, for the old Frenchman had fortunately still remained on board – the blazing heat being too much for him.
“Lola,” her companion exclaimed, “I have spoken to your uncle quite openly this morning. I know that he hates me.”
She turned quickly and looked straight at him with her wonderful dark eyes.
“Well – ?” she asked.
“He has told me the truth,” Waldron went on seriously. “He has explained that the reason he objects to our companionship is because you are already betrothed.”
“Betrothed?” she echoed, staring at him.
“Yes. To whom? Tell me, mam’zelle,” he asked slowly.
She made no response. Her eyes were downcast; her cheeks suddenly pale. They were standing beneath the shadow of an ancient wide-spreading tree which struggled for existence at the edge of the Nile flood.
“He has said that I am betrothed – eh?” she asked, as though speaking to herself.
“He has told me so. Your future husband has been already chosen,” he said in a low, mechanical tone.
Her teeth were set, her sweet, refined countenance had grown even paler.
“Yes,” she admitted at last, drawing a deep breath. “My past has been bright and happy, but, alas! before me there now only lies tragedy; and despair. Ah! if I were but my own mistress – if only I could escape this grip of evil which is ever upon me!”
“Grip of evil! What do you mean?” he inquired eagerly.
“Ah! you do not know – you can never tell!” she cried. “The evil hand of Jules Gigleux is ever upon me, a hard, iron, inexorable hand. Ah! M’sieur Waldron, you would, if you only knew the truth, pity a woman who is in the power of a man of that stamp – a man who has neither feeling, nor conscience, neither human kindness nor remorse.”
“He’s a confounded brute – that I know. I feel sure of it,” her companion declared hastily. “But look here, mam’zelle, can’t I assist you? Can’t I help you out of this pitfall into which you seem to have fallen. Why should you be forced to marry this man whom your uncle has chosen – whoever he may be?”
She shook her head mournfully, her lips quite white.
“No,” she sighed. “I fear your efforts could have no avail. It is true that I am betrothed – pledged to a man whom I hate. But I know that I cannot escape. I must obey the decree which has gone forth. Few girls to-day marry for love, I fear – and true love, alas! seems ever to bring poverty in its wake.”
“That’s the old sentimental way of looking at it,” he declared. “There’s many a rich marriage in which Cupid plays the principal part. I’ve known lots.”
“In my case it cannot be,” the girl declared hopelessly. “My future has been planned for me, and admits of no alteration,” she went on. “To me, love – the true love of a woman towards a man – is forbidden. My only thought is to crush it completely from my heart and to meet my future husband as I would a dire misfortune.”
“Not a very cheerful outlook, I fear.”
“No, my future can, alas! be only one of tragedy, M’sieur Waldron, so the less we discuss it the better. It is, I assure you, a very painful subject,” and again she sighed heavily, and he saw hot tears welling in those splendid eyes which he always admired so profoundly.
Her face was full of black tragedy, and as Waldron gazed upon it his heart went out in deepest sympathy towards her.
“But surely this uncle of yours is not such an absolute brute as to compel you to wed against your will!” he cried.
“Not he alone compels me. There are other interests,” was her slow reply, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. “I am bound, fettered, hand and foot. Ah! you do not know!” she cried.
“Cannot I assist you to break these fetters?” he asked, bending to her earnestly. “I see that you are suffering, and if I can do anything to serve your interests I assure you, mademoiselle, I will.”
“I feel certain of that,” was her answer. “Already you have been very good and patient with me. I know I have often sorely tried your temper. But you must forgive me. It is my nature, I fear, to be mischievous and irresponsible.”
At that instant the recollection of the night in Assouan crossed Waldron’s mind – of that mysterious messenger who had come post-haste from Europe, and had as mysteriously returned. He had never mentioned the affair, for had he done so she would have known that he had spied upon her. Therefore he had remained silent.
They stood together beneath the shade of that spreading tree with the heat of the desert sand reflected into their faces – stood in silence, neither speaking.
At last he said:
“And may I not know the identity of the man who is marked out to be your husband?”
