d lived, everything might have been different; but he was a
very old man, and he died of pneumonia soon after Saidee married Cassim
ben Halim. There was no one else to help. So from the time I was
fourteen, I knew that somehow I must make money. Without money I could
never hope to get to Algiers and find Saidee. Even though she had
disappeared from there, it seemed to me that Algiers would be the place
to begin my search. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, Algiers is the place to begin," Stephen echoed. "There ought to be
a way of tracking her. _Some one_ must know what became of a more or
less important man such as your brother-in-law seems to have been. It's
incredible that he should have been able to vanish without leaving any
trace."

"He must have left a trace, and though nobody else, so far, has found
it, I shall find it," said the girl. "I did what I could before. I asked
everybody to help; and when I got to New York last year, I used to go to
Cook's office, to inquire for people travelling to Algiers. Then, if I
met any, I would at once speak of my sister, and give them my address,
to let me know if they should discover anything. They always seemed
interested, and said they would really do their best, but they must have
failed, or else they forgot. No news ever came back. It will be
different with me now, though. I shall find Saidee, and if she isn't
happy, I shall bring her away with me. If her husband is a bad man, and
if the reason he left Algiers is because he lost his money, as I
sometimes think, I may have to bribe him to let her go. But I have money
enough for everything, I hope--unless he's very greedy, or there are
difficulties I can't foresee. In that case, I shall dance again, and
make more money, you know--that's all there is about it."

"One thing I do know, is that you are wonderful," said Stephen, his
conscience pricking him because of certain unjust thoughts concerning
this child which he had harboured since learning that she was a dancer.
"You're the most wonderful girl I ever saw or heard of."

She laughed happily. "Oh no, I'm not wonderful at all. It's funny you
should think so. Perhaps none of the girls you know have had a big work
to do."

"I'm sure they never have," said Stephen, "and if they had, they
wouldn't have done it."

"Yes, they would. Anybody would--that is, if they wanted to, _enough_.
You can always do what you want to _enough_. I wanted to do this with
all my heart and soul, so