ncing his way.

Jinny had a frock she wished repaired. Mrs. Heath-Brown, whom she
had met upon the Nile, recommended to her a Mrs. Hendricks, wife of
a British soldier and a most clever little needle woman. Jinny
looked up Mrs. Hendricks and found it impossible to secure her for
some days as she was busy refitting for a fashionable wedding in the
Mohammedan world.

A night later, and two nights before the wedding, Jinny made a
narrative of the circumstances for Jack Ryder's benefit.

"Such frocks h'as h'I 'ave to do--and the young lady no more
caring!" had been a saying of the Hendricks that Jinny passed
interestedly on to Jack. She had no memory of the young lady's name,
but distinctly she recalled that she was young and beautiful and to
marry a general.

It was enough to launch Jinny's eager interest in Mohammedan
marriages and foster the wish that she might attend one. She
regretted Mrs. Heath-Brown's absence and her lack of acquaintance,
and suggested that Jack ought to know some one--

"Better than that, _I'll_ take you," said Jack with a promptness
that brought a light to Miss Jeffries' eyes.

There was also a light in Jack Ryder's eyes, a swift burning of
excitement and adventure.

Why not? The thing was possible. Muffled in a tcharchaf and veiled
with a heavy yashmak, armed with enough Arabic for the briefest of
encounters, he might dare the danger. Who in the world would
discover him? Who would ever know?

The thing was unthinkable. It was a desperate desecration,
comparable only, in his vague analogies, to the Mecca pilgrimage and
profanation of a Holy Tomb. But its very improbability would prevent
detection.

Only Jinny had to keep her mouth extremely shut--before and
afterwards.

He impressed this upon her so thoroughly, as they did their shopping
for the costume together the next morning, that she had compunctious
moments of solicitude when she said he really ought not to.... She
would feel responsible....

Thereupon he laughed, and dared her to be game, and she grew all
mirthful confidence again.

But that night, sitting alone in a native cafe over his Turkish
coffee, Ryder was grimly serious.

He knew that it was a mad thing to do. He felt, not so much the
danger he ran from discovery, but the danger to his already
shattered peace of mind from another glimpse of that strange girl
... that young unknown, on whom he had spent such time and thought,
of late, that she seemed a very part of