p me to escape. Which means, if you've really forgiven
my horridness, that you'll take pity on me and ask me to dine with you
before you put me into my train as you promised."

"I will do all that," said Max, almost eagerly. "And if you'll let me
I'll go with you in the train to Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't consent to such a sacrifice."

"I must go either by your train or another."

"Why--why?"

"I've found out that the woman I came to search for is not only alive,
but living at Sidi-bel-Abbes."

"It's Fate!" the girl half whispered. "But _what_ Fate? What does it all
mean?"

"I've been asking myself that question," Max said, "and I can't find an
answer--yet."

CHAPTER VIII

ON THE STATION PLATFORM

They dined together in a glass-fronted restaurant opening out on to the
terrace, and Sanda was sweet, but absent-minded. Max could guess where
her thoughts were, and almost hated Stanton. How could the man let some
wretched engagement, with a few French officers, keep him from this poor
little girl who adored him? How could Stanton let her go alone to meet
her unnatural father (it was thus that Max thought of Colonel DeLisle)
when as her one-time guardian he might have taken her to Sidi-bel-Abbes
himself, and persuaded his old friend, DeLisle, to be lenient. All that
Max had heard against the explorer came back to him, and he was ready to
believe Stanton the cruel and selfish egoist that gossip sketched him.
Poor Sanda!

Miss DeLisle had meant to finish her long journey as she had begun it,
second-class; but Max persuaded the girl to let him take for her a
first-class ticket, with _coupe lit_, in a compartment for women, as far
as the station where at dawn they must change for Sidi-bel-Abbes. She
was surprised at the smallness of the price, but did not suspect that
she owed her new friend anything more substantial than gratitude for all
the trouble he had taken for her comfort.

Max himself went second-class, packed in with seven men who would have
thought opening the window a symptom of insanity.

One of the seven was the man with whom Sanda DeLisle had chatted on
board the _General Morel_ at dinner. He was the hero of the compartment,
for he was going to Sidi-bel-Abbes to fight a boxing match with the
champion of the Legion, a soldier named Pelle. Four of the travellers
(three men of Algiers and a youth of Sidi-bel-Abbes) were accompanying
the French boxer, having met him