n to her that seemed the
end, for the girl listened with meekness and offered no objection except
that the hot weather had stolen her strength: she was not well.

"Let the excitement of being a bride bring back thy health, like wine in
thy veins, Little Rose," said the Agha, speaking in French out of
compliment to the guest, and to show her that there was no family secret
under discussion which she might not share.

"It is not exciting to marry my cousin Tahar," Ourieda sighed rather
than protested. "He is an ugly man, dreadful for a girl to look upon as
her husband."

"Thou makest me feel that thine aunt is right when she tells me I was
wrong ever to let thee look upon him or any man except thy father," the
Agha answered quickly, with a sudden light behind the darkness of his
eyes like the flash of a sword in the night. Sanda, knowing what she
knew, guessed at a hidden meaning in the words. He was remembering
Manoeel, and wishing his daughter to see that he had never for a moment
forgotten the thing that had passed. The Agha, despite his eagle face,
had been invariably so gentle when with the women of his household, and
had seemed so cultured, so instructed in all the tenets of the twentieth
century, that Sanda had sometimes wondered if his daughter were not
needlessly afraid of him. But the unsheathing of that sword of light
convinced her of Ourieda's wisdom. The girl knew her father. If she
dared to urge any further her dislike of Tahar he would believe it was
because of Manoeel, and hurry rather than delay the wedding. Illness was
the only possible plea, and even to that Ben Raana seemed to attach
little importance. Marriage meant change and new interests. It should be
a tonic for a Rose drooping in the garden of her father's harem.

"Thou seest for thyself that it is no use to plead," whispered Ourieda
when her father had gone, and Leila Mabrouka and her woman, Taous, on
the overhanging balcony, were loudly discussing details of the feast.
"Now, at last, is the time to tell the thing I waited to tell, till the
worst should come: the thing thou couldst do for me, which would be even
harder to do, and take more courage--oh! far more courage!--than leaving
the letters open."

The look in Ourieda's eyes of topaz brown was more tragic, more
strangely fatal than Sanda had ever seen it yet, even on the roof in the
sunset when the story of Manoeel had been told. The heart of her friend
felt like a clock that is runnin