ir John Wetherbourne was not
in the hotel, had paced her room until she could with reason arouse her
maid, and, having bathed and breakfasted, had started out on the
seemingly mad pursuit of someone who had failed to return to his
habitat during the night--and in Cairo too!

Is it surprising that men winked secretly at one another, and that
their wives, sharers of their joys and sorrows, scandal and gossip
inclusive, jingled their bracelets and pursed their lips, and did all
those things which jealous women--not necessarily love jealous--are
feign to do when the object responsible for the conception of the
green-eyed monster within their being is bent on making a fool of
herself?

"Come now, dearie," mumbled Lady Sarah Gruntham, who insisted on
keeping Lancashire meal hours to the consternation of the hotel staff,
native and otherwise, as she mopped her heated brow with her
handkerchief and with the other hand patted the dark head leaning
wearily upon the row of scarab buttons adorning her tussore front, from
which she had forgotten to remove her finger napkin when the girl had
entered. "Come now--come now. Don't 'ee take on an' fret so. The
lad'll coom back to ye, never ye fear now. Well I remember when yon
Tim of mine was down t' mine in t' big explosion--I took on just as ye
are takin' on, love, but down in me heart, lass, I never really feared
me, because I knew that me love for me lad was that great, lass, that
I'd pull him out of danger--and sure and I did, lass, black as a sweep
and with a broken arm, but alive, and a champion tea of shrimps and
cress we had, jest as ye'll have with yer lad when he comes back, lass!"

Which motherly comfort served to lighten the heavy heart, but brought
not the faintest shadow of a smile to the steadfast eyes. For even the
vision of watercress, shrimps and tea on the verandah at Shepherds will
not force a light to the windows of the soul when they are blinded with
anxiety.

So Mary Bingham, in her cool white dress, lay back in the long chair,
with a glass of iced lemonade on a table by her side in a room darkened
so as to induce slumber, whilst out in the desert with choked cries of
"Good dog! At it! Good dog!" a man began scratching the sand as a
ratting terrier does the earth, until he had excavated a hole big
enough in which to curl himself, where he lay until desert things that
creep and crawl drove him out again, shrieking for water.

CHAPTER XLII

And t