Damaris laughed as she took the satin cloak with broad sable collar, then kissed her Nannie and walked down the corridor to her godmother’s sitting-room, followed by the bulldog.

“I don’t want to dance, Well-Well; I’d much rather stay up here with you and read.”

“Humff!” said the dog, as he followed his beloved onto the small balcony, where he stood as close as he could to her as she leant on the rail, and looked up at the moon and out to the other side of the river, where ruined temple and ruined tomb shone white.

“I’ll come up and see you both,” she said, looking down into the hideously-beautiful face, with its honest eyes and beaming expression.  “But I can’t take you down with me, you know.  You might hurl yourself into the middle of a fox-trot to find me.  I’ll bring you up a cake or a chocolate, if you’ll stay in here and not go after Jane to worry her with my night-slippers.  Good boy; stay here and wait for Missie.”

“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.”