ar the wall of earth which divided the garden from the
partially waste and partially cultivated ground which lay beyond it.

She had not thought that they would come back--there.

This was the end of their voyage. But what was to be the end?

Baroudi made no sign. He had never written to her one word. She had
never dared to write to him. He had not told her to write, and that
meant he did not choose her to write. She was very much afraid of him,
and her fear of him was part of the terrible fascination he held to
govern her. She who had had so many slaves when she was young ended
thus--in being herself a slave.

She sat down by the earth wall on the first stones of the promontory.
The night was moonless; but in the clear nights of Egypt, even without
the moon very near details can often be distinguished.

To the right of Mrs. Armine the brown earth bank shelved steeply to a
shore that was like a sandy beach which an incoming tide had nearly
covered. About it, in a sort of large basin of loose sand and earth,
grew a quantity of bushes forming a not dense scrub. She had never been
down to walk upon the sandy shore, though she had often descended to get
into the felucca. But to-night, after sitting still for some time, she
went down, and began to pace upon the sand close to the water's edge.

From here she could not see the house with its lighted windows, speaking
to her of the life in which she was involved. She could see nothing
except the darkness of the great river, the dark outline of the
promontory, and of the top of the bank where the garden began, the dark
and confused forms of the bushes tangled together. At her feet the
silent water lay, like lake water almost, though farther out the current
was strong.

"What am I going to do?" she kept on saying to herself, as she walked to
and fro in this solitude. "What am I going to do?"

It was a strange thing, perhaps, that even at this moment Baroudi, the
man at a distance, frightened her more than Isaacson, the man who was
near. She did not know what either was going to do. She was the prey of
a double uncertainty. Isaacson, she supposed, would bring her husband
back to health, unless even now she found means to get rid of him. And
Baroudi, what would he do? She looked across the river and saw the blue
light. Why was the _Loulia_ tied up there? Was Baroudi coming up to
join her?

If he did come! She walked faster, quite unconscious that she had
quickened her pac