if she had only come
up to him, touched his hand, said, "Dear old boy, what does it matter?
You don't suppose I've ever bothered about being the future Lady
Harwich?"--something of that kind, all his doubts would have been swept
away. But she had taken it too coolly, almost, had dismissed it too
abruptly. Perhaps that was his fault, though, for he had been reserved
with her, had not said to her all he was thinking, or indeed anything he
was thinking.

"Ruby! I say, Ruby!"

Following a strong impulse, he hastened after her, and came up with her
on the bank of the Nile.

"Look!" she said.

"What? Oh, Baroudi's dahabeeyah tied up over there! Yes, I knew that.
It's to get out of the noise of Luxor. Ruby, you--you don't mind about
Harwich and the boys?"

"Mind?" she said.

Her voice was suddenly almost angry, and an expression that was hard
came into her brilliant eyes.

"Mind? What do you mean, Nigel?"

"Well, you see it makes a lot of difference in my position from the
worldly point of view."

"And you think I care about that! I knew you did. I knew exactly what
you were thinking on the terrace!"

There was a wounded sound in her voice. Then she added, with a sort of
terribly bitter quietness:

"But--what else could you, or anyone, think?"

"Ruby!" he exclaimed.

He tried to seize her hand, but she would not let him.

"No, Nigel! don't touch me now. I--I shall hate you if you touch me
now."

Her face was distorted with passion, and the tears stood in her eyes.

"I don't blame you a bit," she said. "I should be a fool to expect
anyone, even you, to believe in me after all that--all that has
happened. But--it is hard, sometimes it is frightfully hard, to bear all
this disbelief that one can have any good in one."

She turned hurriedly away.

"Ruby!" he said, with a passion of tenderness.

"No, no! Leave me alone for a little. I tell you I must be alone!" she
exclaimed, as he followed her.

He stopped on the garden path and watched her go into the house.

"Beast, brute that I am!" he said to himself.

He clenched his hands. At that moment he hated himself; he longed to
strike himself down--himself, and all men with himself--to lay them even
with the ground--cynics, unbelievers, agents destructive of all that was
good and noble.

Mrs. Armine went straight up to her room, locked the door against her
maid, and gave way to a violent storm of passion, which had been
determined by Nigel's impulse to