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Page 83
"Take me with you," said Wellington, as plainly as he could with eyes
and tail. "Take me with you."
"Can't, old boy. Look"--she reached inside for a book she had been
reading, and laid it on the ground. "Keep that for Missie until she
comes back."
She smiled down at the great brute as it placed both forefeet upon the
volume, but she sighed as she leant for a moment on the rail, then
suddenly drew back as she heard her name mentioned by someone who,
hankering after a cigarette, had wandered out to the canvas rocking
seat directly beneath the balcony.
". . . Well!" said the masculine voice, "I think it's damned hard lines
on Miss Hethencourt, that's all; and a man wants a damned good hiding
for being a knave as well as a fool."
"Of course it's not gospel-truth," replied the voice of the hotel's
biggest-gossip-bar-none, who, on account of her abnormal interest in
other people's affairs, had earned the sobriquet of Paulina Pry, "but
some people I know who were at Heliopolis and have just come from
Assouan told me that Mr. Kelham is engaged to Miss Sidmouth--you know,
she is the crack lady-shot--and that they are on their way home now.
The engagement, I should think, will be announced shortly."
"Well, all I can say is that I'm infernally sorry that Miss Hethencourt
has been made the butt of gossip and scandal through a cad's behaviour,
and I think that you and I ought to be shot for discussing her and her
very intimate affairs. If------"
Damaris waited to hear no more.
White as chalk, she stumbled back into the room and crouched down upon
the floor beside a chair, burying her face in her arms. For five of
the longest minutes of her life she knelt, burning with shame,
trembling with rage; then she sat hack on her heels.
"Is there nobody to help me in all the wide world? Nobody I can go to?"
And clearly, as though it was in the room, she heard the echo of the
words spoken in the Shrine of Anubis, the God of Death: "Allah! how I
love you, and if I may not be your master, I can at least serve you.
If you are in distress, will you send me a messenger to my Tents of
Purple and Gold? . . . My boat from sunset to sunrise waits at the
landing-stage . . . the mare Pi-Kay waits from the setting until the
rising of the sun at the Gate of To-morrow."
She acted on the impulse of her outraged pride; she gave not one
thought to the mad thing she was about to do; she stayed not one
instant to question the trustworthiness of the man who had so strangely
shadowed her since their meeting in the bazaar; she decided in the
flick of an eyelid.
She would go to him; she would tell him everything, and if he were then
willing to make her his wife, she would go to his English mother, and
from the shelter of her arms proclaim her engagement to the world.
Yes! she would run away.
In a flash she thought of her beloved old godmother and the loving arms
always held out to her, and the loving sympathy and counsel which never
failed.
But she shook her head.
To silence the scandalmongers her engagement must be made known before
that of the man who had treated her so shamefully; who, if only she had
known, was racing towards her at that very moment as fast as train
could take him.
"Wait for Missie; you shall come to her," she whispered as she knelt
and kissed the dog; "you and Janie."
She sprang to her feet.
What about her promise to her old Nannie? Had she not crossed her
heart and given her word that she would always let her know where she
had gone?
She moved swiftly to the writing-table, took a sheet of paper and
hastily wrote a line; then looked round for some place to leave the
message.
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