a brief letter to Freddy. She
felt like a criminal writing a warrant for her own arrest, but as the
thing had to be done, it was best to get it over soon as possible.

"DEAR CHUM,

"Last night I saw Millicent Mervill and what she told me leaves me no
choice. I will keep my promise and go back to England. A boat goes
next Tuesday; if I can book a passage I shall go by it. Until then I
will stay with Hadassah Ireton. I like her most awfully.

"Please don't think that by keeping my promise to you I am condemning
Mike or that I have given up hope that one day he will be able to
explain everything satisfactorily. Don't worry about me, dear old
thing. I'm all right and I will take every care of myself, so keep
your mind easy on that point. I'm not nearly so wretched as I should
be if I believed everything that this letter implies.

"Yours ever,

"MEG.

"P.S.--Millicent pretended not to know anything about the information
which the Government has received. She told me, with an air of
beautiful innocence, that an uncle in Australia had left her a nice
legacy. Funny isn't it? I think I managed to behave pretty well--the
shades of our ancestors guarded me, I suppose."

When the letter was posted, and could not be retrieved, Meg went into
the coffee-room and tried to soothe her soul with material comforts.
An excellent cup of coffee made a good beginning. The letter settling
her fate was in the post-office; she was going home to England in a few
days. She was trying to swallow the hard facts with each mouthful
which she drank.

What a contrast her leaving Egypt would be to her arrival in the
country! How flattened out and disillusioned she would feel! What an
ordinary, everyday ending to her vivid romance in the Valley! When she
thought of the little hut, almost hidden in one of the many wrinkles of
the hills, she smiled. Her senses glowed; she visualized the arid
scene, suddenly transformed into an Eden with Love's passion-flowers.
No garden in paradise could suggest to a Moslem mind diviner voices or
greater radiance. Cairo, with its confusion of sounds and its medley
of human races, was empty and meaningless; it was wiped out. She was
once more in the Valley, where life was vital and human.

After a little time of happy dreaming, the bitter fact came back to
her, like a cold wind disturbing a summer's heat, that she had actually
written to her brother promising him that she would go home. W