laridge Pasha--"

"One moment, madame," he interrupted, and, opening a drawer, took out
a letter. "I think that what you would say may be found here, with
much else that you will care to know. It is the last news of Claridge
Pasha--a letter from him. I understand all you would say to me; but
he who has most at stake has said it, and, if he failed, do you think,
madame, that you could succeed?"

He handed her the letter with a respectful salutation.

"In the hour he left, madame, he came to know that the name of Foorgat
Bey was not blotted from the book of Time, nor from Fate's reckoning."

After all these years! Her instinct had been true, then, that night so
long ago. The hand that took the letter trembled slightly in spite of
her will, but it was not the disclosure Nahoum had made which caused her
agitation. This letter she held was in David Claridge's hand, the first
she had ever seen, and, maybe, the last that he had ever written, or
that any one would ever see, a document of tears. But no, there were
no tears in this letter! As Hylda read it the trembling passed from her
fingers, and a great thrilling pride possessed her. If tragedy had come,
then it had fallen like a fire from heaven, not like a pestilence rising
from the earth. Here indeed was that which justified all she had done,
what she was doing now, what she meant to do when she had read the last
word of it and the firm, clear signature beneath.

"Excellency [the letter began in English], I came into the desert
and into the perils I find here, with your last words in my ear,
'There is the matter of Foorgat Bey.' The time you chose to speak
was chosen well for your purpose, but ill for me. I could not turn
back, I must go on. Had I returned, of what avail? What could I do
but say what I say here, that my hand killed Foorgat Bey; that I had
not meant to kill him, though at the moment I struck I took no heed
whether he lived or died. Since you know of my sorrowful deed, you
also know why Foorgat Bey was struck down. When, as I left the bank
of the Nile, your words blinded my eyes, my mind said in its misery:
'Now, I see!' The curtains fell away from between you and me, and I
saw all that you had done for vengeance and revenge. You knew all
on that night when you sought your life of me and the way back to
Kaid's forgiveness. I see all as though you spoke it in my ear.
You had reason to hurt me, but you had no rea