“What wouldst thou?” Jill asked her in Arabic, which was as wellnigh perfect as any European can make it, and although she could hardly make out one whole sentence of what she took for a dialect spoken by the woman, she grasped enough to understand that the Egyptian, draped in the peasant’s cloak, was anxious to read her fortune in the sand she carried in the black handkerchief, and which sand she said she had gathered on the steps of the temple’s high altar at the full moon.

Jill sat down on a fallen block of masonry, looking very fragile, very sweet, very fair, with her white throat gleaming above the white silk blouse and jersey, soft blue hat pulled over her sunny head to shade her face, death-white save for the shadows which seemed to make a mask about her eyes, as she drew hieroglyphics on her own account in the sand with the tip of her small white shoe.

She had heard of the extraordinary powers possessed by some of the Egyptian people; Hahmed had told her of their gift of reading the future in the sand; among her own household she had come across authentic cases where the most unlikely things predicted had come to pass.

And the cloud about her was so thick, and weighed so heavily upon her!  Of her own free-will she had flung her happiness away, and with her happiness had gone her content and light-heartedness.  She laughed with others, and cried softly by herself at night; she shared the amusements with others, and sat up at night, bewildered and afraid, to steal to the mirror and look upon a pinched face with tightened nostrils, and to wipe away the dampness gathered under the golden curls.

Had her marriage been a mistake or not?  If not, why had she fled before the first little sign of storm?  If it had been, why was she utterly miserable now that liberty was hers?

Her friends would surely be taking their departure soon.  Should she go too, or should she go back in all humbleness to the man she loved?  Did he want her, having shown no sign or desire for her return?  Did he—­did he not?  A decision must be made, and soon, but what was it to be?  Round and round, like a flock of startled pigeons, went her thoughts, one breaking away to whirr into the back of her mind, another to drift into the shadows, and another, and yet another, whilst the rest flew on, round and round!

And then she shrank back, gripping the stone with two cold little hands as great drops gathered and trickled down her face, her breath coming in silent gasps.

Stricken with terror she threw out her arms passionately.

“Speak, woman, speak!  Spread the sand, and read to me what thou seest therein.  Thy finger shall point the way, and that way will I follow wherever it may lead.”

CHAPTER XLVIII

Whereupon the woman of the shadows, turning towards that which had once been an altar, and raising her arms straight above her head with hands out-turned at an acute angle, thrice repeated words that were absolutely unintelligible to Jill.