re him, then placed them upon his
thighs, inclined himself, and prayed. And as he made his first
inclination of humble worship in the little room behind her Mrs. Armine
heard a low murmuring, almost like the sound of bees in sultry weather.
She turned, and saw Baroudi praying, on a prayer-rug with a niche woven
in it, which was duly set towards Mecca.

She, the unbeliever, was encompassed by prayer. And something within her
told her that the moment for flight already lay behind her, that she had
let it go by unheeded, that the hands which already had touched her
would not relax their grasp until--what?

She did not answer that question.

But when the fellah cried out once more in the distance, it seemed to
her that she heard a savage triumph in his voice.

XXI

A week later Mrs. Armine received a telegram from Cairo:

"Starting to-night, arrive to-morrow morning. Love--Nigel."

She had been expecting such a message; she had known that it must come;
yet when Hassan brought it into the garden, where she was sitting at the
moment, she felt as if she had been struck. Hassan waited calmly beside
her till, with an almost violent gesture, she showed him there was no
answer. When he had gone she sat for a moment with the telegram on her
knees; then she cried out for Ibrahim. He heard her voice, and came,
with his sauntering gait, moving slowly among the rose-trees.

"I've a telegram from Cairo," she said.

She took up the paper and showed it to him.

"My lord Arminigel--he is comin' back?"

"Yes."

"That is very good noos, very nice noos indeed," said Ibrahim, with an
air of sleepy satisfaction.

"He starts to-night, and will be here with the express to-morrow
morning."

"This is a most bootiful business!" said Ibrahim, blandly. "My lord he
has been away so long he will be glad to see us again."

She looked at him, but he did not look at her. Turning a flower in his
white teeth, he was gazing towards the river, with an unruffled
composure which she felt almost as a rebuke. But why should it matter to
him? Baroudi had paid him. Nigel paid him. He had no reason to be upset.

"When he comes," she said, "he will take me away to the Fayyum."

"Yes. The Fayyum is very nice place, very good place indeed. There is
everythin' there; there is jackal, pidgin, duck, lots and lots of
sugar-cane; there is water, there is palm-trees; there is everythin'
what any one him want."

"Ah!" she said.

She got up, wit