for the ordinary happiness which
other human beings know. We have been in the shadow a long time, Chloe
and I"--he spoke half to himself--"but now we may surely pray for
sunshine for the rest of our earthly pilgrimage together."

"Amen to that," said Anstice solemnly; and as the two men shook hands
silently each rejoiced, in his individual fashion, that Chloe Carstairs
had come into her own at last.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I

Anstice stood on the deck of the P. and O. boat _Moldavia_, looking out
over the blue seas to where Port Said lay white and shining in the rays
of the March sun.

He had seen the port before, on his way to and from India, but he had
never landed there, and looked forward with some keenness of
anticipation to setting foot in the place which enjoys, rightly or
wrongly, one of the most unsavoury reputations in the world.

Not that his stay would be long--a night at most--for he purposed
journeying on to Cairo without loss of time, and as the boat drew nearer
and nearer to the quay, whereon a crowd of gesticulating natives raised
the unholy din which every traveller associates with this particular
landing, Anstice turned about and swung down the companion to take a
last look round his dismantled cabin.

It was now nearly eight weeks since he had quitted Littlefield. Having
disposed of his practice in the nick of time to a college friend who
wished to settle in the country, and having also received an unexpected
windfall in the shape of a small legacy from a distant relation, he had
decided, after a short stay in London, to take a holiday before starting
to work once more.

His choice of a destination had not been unaffected by the fact of Iris
Cheniston's residence in the land of Egypt. Although he had no
expectation of meeting her--for she and her husband were still somewhere
in the desert, a couple of days' journey from Cairo--there was an odd
fascination in the bare idea of inhabiting, even for a few weeks, the
land which held the girl he still loved. For although he had long since
determined that he must avoid Bruce Cheniston's wife if he wished to
keep his secret inviolate, and incidentally attempt, by starving his
passion of its natural food, to keep his love unsullied by any hint of
envy, any emotion of desire--well, all men are sophists at heart, and in
spite of all his self-assurances that he could visit Egypt without
seeking to gain even a glimpse of Iris, ever in the backg