t he was horrible. I could never have got to
the candles if his hand hadn't been hurt."

"I wish I'd shot his hand off," said Billy bitterly.

"Oh! Was it you who----?"

"When we were in the palace." He told her again about the raid and
she nodded delightedly over it.

"It's so wonderful for you to have done all this," she said with
sudden shyness. "You had just met me----"

The things on Billy's tongue wouldn't do at all. None of them. What
he did say was absurdly stiff and constrained. "You were my
countrywoman--and alone."

"So are the Evershams," said Arlee, with sudden bubbling laughter,
and then as suddenly checked herself. Her fleet glance at him was
half-scared. "You--you are very good to your countrywomen in
distress," she got out stammeringly.

Billy contemplated his cigar. It was safer.

Presently she reverted to the topic of discovery. "But about Mr.
Falconer? Are you sure his suspicions are over now?"

"Perfectly sure. Or they will be the moment he sees you. You'll have
to laugh at him if he mentions them, of course;" Billy spoke with
heartiness.

"He'd hate it," the girl said musingly. "The talk and all--about
me--Oh, after being such a fool _I'd never be the same to them_!"
she broke out passionately.

The furtive pain was bolder now; Billy felt it worming deeper and
deeper into his sorry consciousness. It mattered so much to her what
Falconer thought--so much....

"But I'll do anything you say," she said meekly, looking up at her
rescuer with those big eyes whose blueness always startled him like
unsuspected lakes. He saw then that she meant to be very grateful to
him. Somehow that deepened the pang. He didn't want that kind of
bond....

"Then you will bury even the memory of this time and never whisper a
word of it," he told her stoutly. "The talk and explanation will be
over five minutes after your return. The thing is, to manage that
return. Now the Evershams left Friday and this is Wednesday--six
days."

"Only six days," she echoed with a ghost of a sigh.

"Now let me see where were we on the sixth day? When I was on the
Nile?" He knitted his brows over it. "Why, the steamer leaves
Assiout at noon of the fifth day--that was yesterday."

"Oh! I must have passed them on the Nile," cried Arlee.

"Maragha is where they stopped last night. To-day they'll be
steaming along steadily and stop to-night at Desneh. To-morrow night
they'll be at Luxor."

"And they stay three days at Lux