rrow------"

"Ah! my dear, my dear, there was your great mistake . . ."

"You're wrong," interrupted Jill harshly. "You're hopelessly, cruelly
wrong. He was idolised in England; he is loved out here. It was sheer
spite on the part of the--woman who told him that he was--was----" She
pressed her hands over her mouth as she backed to the wall, then flung
her arms out wide; her face was dead-white, her eyes blazing; she
reminded the old woman of a tigress fighting for her cubs; she was
beautiful beyond words in the tragedy of her motherhood. "I don't
believe you--I don't believe you--I--you------"

"Listen, Jill." The old woman's voice was as cold as ice as she
watched the agony in the fair face. Dear heavens! she did not want to
hurt; she wanted to give in and gather the child up in her arms, but
she knew what was best. "Your boy knows it, dear; he knows he is out
of the running. Come over to me and listen whilst I tell you
something." She sat down and pulled the suffering child down beside
her, who lay across the silken knees like the stricken mother across
the knees of the wise Madonna and made no sound or movement whilst she
listened to the bitter words of the fortune-teller in the hotel garden
at Cairo.

A little silence fell; then, very gently, very tenderly the old woman
spoke:

"So you see, dear, until she is of age it will be only my duty to see
that Damaris does not marry your son."

And Jill sprang to her feet and beat her hands together.

"And I," she said, "I will give my heart's blood to bring happiness to
my son. Death alone shall------"

She stopped and shivered as she glanced over her shoulder out into the
night, then drew herself up with a surpassing dignity and threw out her
hands in the Eastern gesture of resignation.

"You say 'I will not,' I say 'I will,' but it is God who decides."
With a little sobbing sigh she relinquished the unequal struggle, just
as Hobson walked boldly into the room and stood inside the door, like a
graven image of intense displeasure, when her mistress, unable to
withstand the unspoken disapproval, consented, after a promise to Jill
to have another long talk on the morrow, to go to bed.

But there was to be no long talk anyway in the town of Khargegh on the
morrow.

She lay in bed, propped by pillows against which, divested of its mask
of red and white and blue, the dear little old face shone brown. A
priceless bit of lace hid her own white locks, fre