somebody."

Strange was the persistence of the usually placid woman, as she caught
her young mistress by the arm and quite violently shook her fist at the
sinister face of the goddess which shows on each side of the columns.

And strange it is to know that if the girl had but listened, the harm
might not have befallen.

But Damaris shook her head.

"We must be polite, Janie dear, even if we are dying to go home.
Besides, two or three days will do us good, and it will help pass the
time until Marraine comes back. Come, Well-Well."

The dog followed his mistress up to the door, but there he stopped.

"Come along, Well-Well," she repeated.

The dog sat down, with a definite air of ending further exploration as
far as ruins were concerned, on his part.

"I think you and Janie are bewitched to-day."

Damaris spoke petulantly and watched the dog waddle back and sit down
beside the maid, who, busy crocheting, sat on a stone some few yards
from the Temple, to which she had resolutely turned her back.

Damaris stood for a moment feeling as though the very wettest of wet
blankets had been wrapped round her; then turned, listened until she
heard Ellen's staccato voice coming from the direction of the
antechamber in the middle of the Temple, and tiptoed across to the east
side, where are to be found the ruined Treasury and Store Rooms in
which were stored the incense for sacrifice or offering, the vestments
and banners and other such props needful to the correct fulfilment of
the rites of an ancient worship which, as far as services go, in
display of wealth and sense-stirring accessories, did not differ so
very much from what we see in some of our churches in this present day
of grace.

She came to the stairs, up which so many years ago the mother of Hugh
Carden Ali had climbed, on the day when she had fully realised that the
crown of love had come to her.

Damaris climbed them, and stood on the roof, watching, as had watched
Jill Carden, the clouds of twittering birds as they flew in the
direction of the Libyan Hills; then she crossed to the little shrine of
Osiris, stood for a moment unconsciously passing her finger over the
carvings, turned as though someone had called her, and ran down the
stairs.

She stood and listened until she heard Ellen's voice looming from the
side chapel on the western side, then, and just as though pulled by
some invisible hand, she passed quietly through the antechamber into
the san