was
missing."

"You mean no other woman's disappearance was discovered."

"You're incorrigible! I know you're wrong; but, admitting for the sake of
argument that you might be right, what use could you make of this
marvellous private information, supplied to your brain only? If the
Countess de Mattos is really Liane Devereux, come to life, one might be
sure that a woman clever enough to plan from the beginning so astounding
an affair would be too clever to leave any tracks behind her."

"Yes, that is one of the difficulties," said Virginia. "Only somehow we
must get over it."

"I hope, my dear free-lance detective, that you aren't plotting to accuse
the Countess to her face, and have a dramatic scene in the hall of the
Ghezireh Palace?"

"I don't know yet what to do," the girl answered slowly. "But I don't
want to leave Cairo until after we've done something."

"Believe me, there's nothing to do. We are on a wild-goose chase as it
is; don't let's complicate things by a suit for slander just as it's
begun. My advice is, dear, put this mad idea out of your head, and let's
get on about our business as quickly as we can--as quickly as you
yourself wanted to do a few hours ago."

"Then I'm sorry I can't take your advice," said Virginia. "I'm growing
superstitious. I believe that I was brought here for a particular
purpose, and I don't mean to go until, in some way, I've accomplished
that purpose."

Roger sighed, and said no more. He had exhausted his stock of arguments;
he knew Virginia almost as well as he loved her. He had promised
cooeperation; and though there had been no bargaining, she had voluntarily
led him to hope for a reward which, to him, was beyond any other
happiness the world might hold. Therefore he could do nothing but bow to
the inevitable, and await developments, which meant, with a girl like
Virginia Beverly, expecting the unexpected.

* * * * *

Suddenly in the night Virginia sat up in bed and exclaimed aloud: "Oh, if
I could!" Kate Gardiner, in a room adjoining, heard her, and supposed
that she was talking in her sleep. But the truth was that a plan had at
that instant sprung fully armed from her brain, like Minerva from the
head of Jove; a plan so daring that the bare thought was an electric
shock.

She could not sleep after its conception, but lay tossing and tingling
until it was time to get up. Every moment would be long now until the
machinery could be