That plaid was warning her of mystery.

The dressmaker was creating a diversion.  Leaving, she wished to consult about the purchases for to-morrow’s work, and madame moved towards the hall with her, talking in her careful English, while Miriam bent towards the dropped finery.

Aimee slipped through another door, into the twilight of her bedroom, whose windows upon the street were darkened by those fine-wrought screens of wood.  Swiftly she thrust the box from sight, into the hollow in the mashrubiyeh made in old days to hold a water bottle where it could be cooled by breezes from the street.

Leaning against the woodwork, her fingers curving through the tiny openings, she stared toward the west.  The sky was flushing.  Broken by the circles, the squares, the minute interstices of the mashrubiyeh, she saw the city taking on the hues of sunset.

Suddenly the cry of a muezzin from a nearby minaret came rising and falling through the streets.

“La illahe illallah Mohammedun Ressoulallah—­”

The call swelled and died away and rose again ...  There is no God but the God and Mahomet is the Prophet of God ...  From farther towers it sounded, echoing and re-echoing, vibrant, insistent, falling upon crowded streets, penetrating muffling walls.

“La illahe illallah—­”

In the avenue beneath her two Arabs, leading their camels to market, were removing their shoes and going through the gestures of ceremonial washing with the dust of the street.

“La illahe—­”

The city was ringing with it.

The seamstress and the Frenchwoman, still talking, had passed down the hall.  In the next room Miriam’s lips were moving in pious testimony.

“Ech hedu en la illahe—!  I testify that there is no God but the God.”

In the street the Arabs were bowing towards the east, their heads touching the earth.

And in the window above them a girl was reading a note.

* * * * *

The last call of the muezzin, falling from the tardy towers of Kait Bey drifted faintly through the colored air.  With resounding whacks the Arabs were urging on their beast; Miriam, her prayers concluded, was shaking out silks and tulle with a sidelong glance for that still figure in the next room, pressing so close against the guarding screens.

She could not see the pallor in the young face.  She could not see the tumult in the dark eyes.  She could not see the note, crushed convulsively against the beating breast, in the fingers which so few moments ago had drawn it from the hiding place in the box.

Ryder had not dared a personal letter.  But clearly, and distinctly, he stated the story of the Delcasses.  He gave the facts which the pasha admitted and the ingenious explanation of the two Aimees.  And for reference he gave the address of the Delcasse aunt and agent in France and of Ryder and McLean at the Agricultural Bank.