proud when he first called me that--the Prime Minister of
England. I'm going to watch the sun rise again to-morrow, my darling.
I didn't know it was so beautiful, and gave one such an appetite." She
broke a piece of bread, and, not waiting to butter it, almost stuffed it
into her mouth.

Hylda leaned over and pressed her arm. "What a good mother Betty it is!"
she said tenderly.

Presently they were startled by the shrill screaming of a steamer
whistle, followed by the churning of the paddles, as she drove past and
drew to the bank near them.

"It is a steamer from Cairo, with letters, no doubt," said Hylda; and
the Duchess nodded assent, and covertly noted her look, for she knew
that no letters had arrived from Eglington since Hylda had left England.

A half-hour later, as the Duchess sat on deck, a great straw hat tied
under her chin with pale-blue ribbons, like a child of twelve, she was
startled by seeing the figure of a farmer-looking person with a shock of
grey-red hair, a red face, and with great blue eyes, appear before her
in the charge of Hylda's dragoman.

"This has come to speak with my lady," the dragoman said, "but my lady
is riding into the desert there." He pointed to the sands.

The Duchess motioned the dragoman away, and scanned the face of the
new-comer shrewdly. Where had she seen this strange-looking English
peasant, with the rolling walk of a sailor?

"What is your name, and where do you come from?" she asked, not without
anxiety, for there was something ominous and suggestive in the old man's
face.

"I come from Hamley, in England, and my name is Soolsby, your grace. I
come to see my Lady Eglington."

Now she remembered him. She had seen him in Hamley more than once.

"You have come far; have you important news for her ladyship? Is there
anything wrong?" she asked with apparent composure, but with heavy
premonition.

"Ay, news that counts, I bring," answered Soolsby, "or I hadn't come
this long way. 'Tis a long way at sixty-five."

"Well, yes, at our age it is a long way," rejoined the Duchess in a
friendly voice, suddenly waving away the intervening air of class, for
she was half a peasant at heart.

"Ay, and we both come for the same end, I suppose," Soolsby added;
"and a costly business it is. But what matters, so be that you help her
ladyship and I help Our Man."

"And who is 'Our Man'?" was the rejoinder. "Him that's coming safe here
from the South--David Claridge," he answer