ant smile which made her so attractive, and,
rising, put her arms round the motherly old dear's neck and kissed her,
which was an unusual thing for her to do, as she was, as a rule,
undemonstrative to coldness.

"I'd love to go to Denderah, if I may take Janie and Wellington. And
I'm truly not worrying; it's just a tremendous spirit of adventure
which drives me to do these awful things."

So to Denderah she went, with her spirits at highest pitch at the
thought of getting away from Luxor for a few days and of seeing the
wonderful Temple of Hathor, the goddess of Joy and Youth.

She was in riotous spirits when she arrived at the Hotel Denderah in
Kulla, where the lovely porous jugs come from; in fact, so blithe was
she that Ellen, inclined to despondency and of a superstitious
tendency, remarked:

"I should calm myself a little, my dear Damaris; such gaiety can only
lead to depression, later on."

But Damaris only laughed.

How good it is that we cannot visualise beforehand the hour in which
our tears must flow and our hearts come well-nigh to breaking!

She laughed, she sang, she visited the town, and went to bed early.
She teased Jane Coop the next morning as, perilously perched on
donkey-back, she headed the little procession which wended its way
through the stretches of earth which later would give a harvest of corn
and sweet-scented flowering bean.

She urged the panting bulldog along the three good miles, and laughed
at him when, sneezing and coughing, he rubbed his great paws over his
face, covered with the cobwebs which floated on the air; but she
stopped laughing when she first caught sight of the great arch of
crumbling antiquity which is all that is left of the edifice upon the
site of which the Temple of Hathor was built; and she stood quite still
in the over-powering colonnade, whilst the Thistletons, notebooks in
hand, rushed inside in the wake of the guide. Jane Coop stopped dead
at the outer edge of the colonnade.

"I thought you said it was a Temple of Love, dearie: all white marble,
with doves and lovers'-knots and--and hearts. It's a tomb, that's what
it is, and I'm going to sit outside. I don't like it; it bodes no
good. Let's go back, dearie; I don't like the place or the hotel or
the town. If we go quickly we can catch the first boat. Let the
others stay if they want to. I'm thinking of you; my heart's telling
me that you must not stop, and that if you do, harm'll come to you, or