om that had
descended on him like a cloud of unreason. The escapade was nearly
over. The little girl comrade was gone, the little girl whose face
he had so tenderly scrubbed of its grimy sand. A very self-possessed
young lady was sitting beside him, drinking her coffee, an utterly
lovely and gracious young lady--but unfathomably remote--elusive....

Perhaps, again, it was the hairpins.

Off to town on donkey back the three Americans rode slowly, a native
escort filing after, and there in town the bazaars yielded a long
pongee dust coat and a straw hat and a white veil, "to escape
detection," Arlee gaily said, and a satchel which she filled with
mysterious purchases, and then, clad once more in the semblance of
her traveling world, safe and sound and undiscovered, she stood upon
the station platform, awaiting the train to Luxor.

Beside her, two very quiet young men responded but feebly to the
flow of spirits that had amazingly succeeded her exhaustion.
Burroughs was suddenly suffering from a depression most unfamiliar
to his practical mind, which caused him to moon about his work for
days and made his depleted jar of cold cream a wincing memory, and
Billy was increasingly glum.

It was all over now. The girl, who for two winged days had been so
magically his gypsy comrade, was returning to her own world, the
world in which he played so infinitesimal a part. For very pride's
sake now he could never force himself upon her ... as he might
before ...

He stared down at her eagerly, hopefully, for a sign of regret at
the ending of this strange companionship, much as a big Newfoundland
might watch for a caress from a cherished but tyrannic hand, but not
a scrap of regret was evidenced. She was as blithe as a cricket. Her
only pang was for discovery.

"You're sure," she murmured as Burroughs left them to interview the
station clerk, "you're sure they'll never know?"

"I'm positive," he stolidly responded. "Just stick to your story."

"The Evershams won't question--they are never interested in other
people," she mused, with thankfulness. "But Mr. Falconer----"

"Won't have a doubt," said Billy firmly. His gloom closed in thickly
about him.

* * * * *

It was a local, a train of corridor compartments. In one, marked
"Ladies Alone," Arlee was ensconced, with an Englishwoman and her
maid, and two pleasant German women, and in another Billy B. Hill
sat opposite some young Copts and ligh