, George, I will go to Egypt. I should like to go to Egypt.' Then
she went on playing with the necklace and talking to the imaginary
child.

"Again on the following morning as I came into her room to kiss her, she
exclaimed,

"'When do we start for Egypt? Let it be soon.'

"With these sayings the doctors were very pleased, declaring that they
showed signs of a returning interest in life and begging me not to
thwart her wish.

"So I gave way and in the end we went to Egypt together with Lady
Longden, who insisted upon accompanying us although she is a wretched
sailor. At Cairo a large dahabeeyah that I had hired in advance, manned
by an excellent crew and a guard of four soldiers, was awaiting us. In
it we started up the Nile. For a month or more all went well; also to
my delight my wife seemed now and again to show signs of returning
intelligence. Thus she took some interest in the sculptures on the walls
of the temples, about which she had been very fond of reading when in
health. I remember that only a few days before the--the catastrophe,
she pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the infant Horus,
saying, 'Look, George, the holy Mother and the holy Child,' and then
bowed to it reverently as she might have done to an altar. At length
after passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philae we came to
the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which our boat was moored. On the
following morning we explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun
strike upon the four statues which sit at its farther end, spending
the rest of that day studying the colossal figures of Rameses that are
carved upon its face and watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon
camels travelling along the banks of the Nile.

"My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon. For hour after hour she sat
still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple
and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding
desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, 'Beautiful,
beautiful! Now I am at home.' We dined and as there was no moon, went
to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang
one of their weird chanties.

"My wife and her mother slept together in the state cabin of the
dahabeeyah, which was at the stern of the boat. My cabin, a small one,
was on one side of this, and that of the trained nurse on the other. The
crew and the guard were forward of the saloon. A gangway