and her daughter, have it now. There was a scandal about Ben
Halim, and then he went away--a scandal that was mysterious, because
every one talked about it, yet no one knew what had happened--never
surely at least."

"I told you Mademoiselle would be able to give you information!"
exclaimed Nevill. "I felt sure the name was familiar, somehow, though I
couldn't think how. One hears so many Arab names, and generally there's
a 'Ben' or a 'Bou' something or other, if from the South."

"Flan-ben-Flan," laughed Jeanne Soubise. "That means," she explained,
turning to Stephen, "So and So, son of So and So. It is strange, a young
lady came inquiring about Ben Halim only yesterday afternoon; such a
pretty young lady. I was surprised, but she said they had told her in
her hotel I knew everything that had ever happened in Algiers. A nice
compliment to my age. I am not so old as that! But," she added, with a
frank smile, "all the hotels and guides expect commissions when they
send people to me. I suppose they thought this pretty girl fair game,
and that once in my place she would buy. So she did. She bought a string
of amber beads. She liked the gold light in them, and said it seemed as
if she might see a vision of something or some one she wanted to find,
if she gazed through the beads. Many a good Mussulman has said his
prayers with them, if that could bring her luck."

The two young men looked at one another.

"Did she tell you her name?" Stephen asked.

"But yes; she was Mees Ray, and named for the dead Queen Victoria of
England, I suppose, though American. And she told me other things. Her
sister, she said, married a Captain Ben Halim of the Spahis, and came
with him to Algiers, nearly ten years ago. Now she is looking for the
sister."

"We've met Miss Ray," said Nevill. "It's on her business we've come. We
didn't know she'd already been to you, but we might have guessed some
one would send her. She didn't lose much time."

"She wouldn't," said Stephen. "She isn't that kind."

"I knew nothing of the sister," went on Mademoiselle Soubise. "I could
hardly believe at first that Ben Halim had an American wife. Then I
remembered how these Mohammedan men can hide their women, so no one
ever knows. Probably no one ever did know, otherwise gossip would have
leaked out. The man may have been jealous of her. You see, I have Arab
acquaintances. I go to visit ladies in the harems sometimes, and I hear
stories when anything exciti