ng more. They feared that
the same fever--but nothing, positively, was known.... A sad story,
monsieur.... This Delcasse was young and adventurous and an ardent
explorer. An ardent lover, too, for he brought a beautiful French
wife to share the hazards of his expedition--"

"An ardent idiot," thrust in McLean unfeelingly. "Knocking a woman
about the desert.... Not much chance of a clue after all these
years," he concluded with a very British air of dismissal.

But the French agent was not to be sundered from the American who
remembered the book of Delcasse.

From his pocket he brought a leather case and from the case a large
and ornate gold locket.

"His picture, monsieur." He pressed the spring and offered Ryder the
miniature. "It was done in France before he returned on that last
trip, and was left with the aunt. It is said to be a good likeness."

Ryder looked down upon the young face presented to his gaze with a
feeling of sympathy for this unlucky searcher of the past who had
left his own secret in the sands he had come to conquer--sympathy
mingled with blank wonder at the insanity which had brought a woman
with it....

McLean couldn't understand a man's doing it.

Jack Ryder couldn't understand a man's _wanting_ to do it. Love to
Ryder was incomprehensible idiocy. Woman, as far as he was
concerned, had never been created. She was still a spectacle, an
historical record, an uncomprehended motive.

"Nice looking chap," he commented briefly, fingering the curious old
case as he handed it back.

"I'll keep up the inquiries," McLean assured them, "but, as I said,
nothing will come of it.... It's been fifteen years. One more grain
lost in the desert of sand.... By luck, you know, you might just
stumble on something, some native who knew the story, but if fever
carried them off and the Arabs rifled their camp, as I fancy,
they'll jolly well keep their mouths shut. No white man will
know.... I don't advise your people to spend much money on the
search."

"Odd, the inquiries we get," he commented to Ryder when the
Frenchmen had completed their courteous farewells. "You'd think the
Bank was a Bureau of Information! Yesterday there was a stir about
two crazy lads who are supposed to have joined the Mecca pilgrims in
disguise.... Of course our clerks are Copts and _do_ pick up a bit
and the Copts will talk.... I say, Jack, what are you doing?" he
broke off to demand in astonishment, for Jack Ryder had seated
hi