on, from whom he had expectations; he was serving his
seven years, ashamed of his servitude, ever calculating escape--but,
perhaps, no ordinary escape. A faint shudder ran over him. He drew in
the reins of imagination.

Of course, the probabilities were that he was hopelessly astray--one
usually is on such occasions--but this time, it so happened, he was
singularly right. Before one thing only his ready invention stopped
every time. This vileness, this notion of unworthiness in Vance, could
not be negative merely. A man with that face was no inactive weakling.
The motive he was at such pains to conceal, betraying its existence by
that very fact, moved, surely, towards aggressive action. Disguised, it
never slept. Vance was sharply on the alert. He had a plan deep out of
sight. And Henriot remembered how the man's soft approach along the
carpeted corridor had made him start. He recalled the quasi shock it
gave him. He thought again of the feeling of discomfort he had
experienced.

Next, his eager fancy sought to plumb the business these two had
together in Egypt--in the Desert. For the Desert, he felt convinced, had
brought them out. But here, though he constructed numerous explanations,
another barrier stopped him. Because he _knew_. This woman was in touch
with that aspect of ancient Egypt he himself had ever sought in vain;
and not merely with stones the sand had buried so deep, but with the
meanings they once represented, buried so utterly by the sands of later
thought.

And here, being ignorant, he found no clue that could lead to any
satisfactory result, for he possessed no knowledge that might guide him.
He floundered--until Fate helped him. And the instant Fate helped him,
the warning and presentiment he had dismissed as fanciful, became real
again. He hesitated. Caution acted. He would think twice before taking
steps to form acquaintance. "Better not," thought whispered. "Better
leave them alone, this queer couple. They're after things that won't do
you any good." This idea of mischief, almost of danger, in their
purposes was oddly insistent; for what could possibly convey it? But,
while he hesitated, Fate, who sent the warning, pushed him at the same
time into the circle of their lives: at first tentatively--he might
still have escaped; but soon urgently--curiosity led him inexorably
towards the end.

IV

It was so simple a manoeuvre by which Fate began the innocent game. The
woman left a couple