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.

Wellington whimpered as he stood with his fore-feet on the book.

She ran to him and twisted the folded paper into the steel ring of his collar, hugged him closely, and turned away.

With a lace veil over her head, concealing her face, with the sable-trimmed cloak wrapped close about her, she slipped from the hotel without being recognised, and down to the quay.

Almost uncanny is the intuitive power of the native.

Without hesitation, a boatman stepped forward and salaamed to the ground before her.

“By the sign of the Hawk-headed Harakat.”

He repeated the phrase his master had taught him, and which he had repeated over and over again for many days.

And Damaris never once looked back as the boat crossed the blue-green Nile, which, for all she knew, would stretch forever, an impassable barrier, between herself and those she loved.

Acting as in a dream, she could never clearly recall what happened until she stood at the Gate of To-morrow.  She had a vague recollection of crossing the great river, and of being helped out of the boat, and of four gigantic Nubians who stood near a litter and salaamed as she approached; she remembered, too, that the litter was lined and hung with satin curtains and piled with satin cushions, and that she had been carried some distance at a gentle trot which had in no wise disturbed her.

Then it had been gently placed upon the ground, and she had been handed out, to find the sayis of the stallion Sooltan standing salaaming before her, with his hand on the bridle of the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay, the glory of Egypt.